Health Minister Simon Harris has said there will be no "big bang moment" of re-opening of services on May 5th.

In a message on Twitter, he said Ireland is ahead of many other European countries in relation to testing for the coronavirus.

He said: "This country has been testing more per head of population than many countries", with Ireland being in the top five for coronavirus testing as a percentage of the population.

"But you want to do more... and we want to have a testing system that has an ability to test 100,000 people in a week should that need arise".

While the current coronavirus restrictions are in place until May 5th, Minister Harris said this is unlikely to change on a large scale.

"I have been very clear that I don't expect a big bang moment on the 5th of May where there's a massive lifting or changing to restrictions.

"But what I do hope happens in and around then is that we can publish a plan that would show you how we'd like to re-open our country and how we'd like to go about it at the appropriate time.

"But we're only going to do it if it is safe to do so.

"We're not going to do anything that would jeopardise your health, your family's health or the lives of yourselves or your loved ones".

"The Irish people have worked far too hard and come along the road far too much to risk - for political expediency or any other reason - changing that".

Sunday evening update on #Covid19 #coronavirus https://t.co/G1p5pVNrzc

— Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) April 26, 2020

Minister Harris is also meeting a number of disability organisations in relation to the outbreak on Monday.

It comes as 26 more people died as a result of the coronavirus here on Sunday.

There have now been a total of 1,087 COVID-19 related deaths in Ireland.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) was also notified of 701 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 - bringing the total number of confirmed cases to 19,262.

Data from the HPSC, as of midnight on Friday, reveals:

• 57% are women and 42% are men
• The median age of confirmed cases is 49 years
• 2,576 cases (14%) have been hospitalised
• Of those hospitalised, 349 cases have been admitted to ICU
• 5,064 cases are associated with healthcare workers

Dublin has the highest number of cases at 9,224 (50% of all cases) - followed by Cork with 1,110 cases (6%)

Of those for whom transmission status is known community transmission accounts for 63%, close contact is 33% and travel abroad accounts for 4%.