The US will not be on the travel 'green list' and Britain is also "unlikely" to make the cut, the Foreign Affairs Minister has said.
The Government is set to publish the list of countries deemed safe to travel to on Monday.
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney says that the list will not be particularly long for now.
He said the list means people arriving here from those countries won't be asked to self-quarantine and restrict their movement for 14 days.
He explained: "This is not on the basis of politics - it's on the basis of epidemiological data and numbers, so we can compare Ireland to other countries.
"Then we can put people on a green list that we regard as representing no higher risk than Ireland represents.
"In other words, travelling to one of these countries wouldn't be any different to travelling to Kerry, Connemara or Donegal for your holidays."
Minister Coveney confirmed the US won't be on the list - saying there's "no question" that will be the case.
He said: "I think it's very unlikely our closest neighbour either will be under that threshold that we set.
"That's really unfortunate, because the two countries we would like to be opening up to in terms of international travel are the UK and US, given the integration between our economy and those two countries.
"I think it's very unlikely that either the UK or US will be on that green list."
Main image: File photo of Simon Coveney. Picture by: Leah Farrell/Rollingnews.ie
