The HSEs chief clinical officer Dr Colm Henry has said that current Covid-19 transmission levels are too high for schools to reopen.
Speaking on RTÉ radios Morning Ireland, Dr Henry said he hoped there would be some approach which would give priority status to certain elements of the education sector.
It was tragic to be talking about schools remaining closed, he said. We learned from the first surge about how much harm was done to children, especially early school children, particularly in special needs environments, when there was a pause in education.
Nobody wanted to see the schools closure being protracted because of what had happened the first time.
But transmission levels at the moment are frankly too high, he said. They needed to be reduced to much lower levels before any additional risk of mixing crowds or a mixing of people in school settings.
It was his hope that certain elements of education, especially special needs, could return because of the impact such closures had previously.
Meanwhile, the European Union is heading towards tougher restrictions on travel both from outside and within the bloc amid rising concerns that new variants of Covid-19 could scupper hopes of reining in the pandemic through vaccination campaigns.
Theres a lot of concern about the variants across the member states, people are really worried about it, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Irish Times following a video conference of EU leaders. 
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said more discussion is needed to identify measures that all 27 can agree to but its all heading in one direction. File photograph: Photograph: Julien Behal
More discussion is needed to identify measures that all 27 can agree to. Theres a bit more work to be done on that…but its all heading in one direction, Mr Martin said. Were very strong that supply chains have to be protected in terms of any travel restrictions.
In the meantime, some member states may press ahead with their own new measures at their borders. Germany and Belgium have led calls for tougher restrictions to curb non-essential travel, though the idea of border checks has met resistance from member states that are dependent on tourism or have a high number of cross-border commuters.
But an expectation that new variants may yet emerge that are resistant to vaccines is fuelling a sense that Europe is in a race against time.
In addition, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has warned that a new more infectious strain of Covid-19 that first arose in Britain could cause a surge in hospitalisations and deaths if it takes hold across the continent.
Member states committed to step up genomic sequencing to identify strains as they emerge.
Separately, microbiologist Professor James McInerney has warned that unless Ireland seals its borders and introduces rigorous quarantining measure there will be repeated lockdowns for the remainder of the year and maybe even into 2022.
It was obvious that Ireland needed to adopt the New Zealand approach and seal its borders, he told RTÉ radios Morning Ireland.
There were ways of quarantining and making sure that people arriving into the country did not bring the virus with them, he said.
Irish-born Prof. McInerney, who is a computational evolutionary biologist and head of life sciences at the University of Nottingham, pointed out that last December he was being asked if the UK virus variant was in Ireland and now it was the main variant in the country.
That was how quickly it could spread, he said. The main concern with the new variants was that some were more transmissible while others made people sicker. The 501Y (South African) variant was of particular concern, he said as there was some evidence that people could be re-infected.
Vaccines could be tweaked and the consensus was that regulatory hurdles would not be as severe in the future. It was akin to removing a block in the wall of a house and replacing it, which would provide protection, he explained.