Tánaiste Leo Varadkar says businesses like non-essential retail and hairdressers won't be able to reopen until at least the end of April or early May.
He says the easing of restrictions will be 'quite limited' on April 5th.
Relaxing the 5km travel limit, allowing small outdoor gatherings and reopening construction are likely to be the first changes in a 'slow' reopening.
Speaking on Newstalk Breakfast, Mr Varadkar said: “Reopening of shops, personal services, hospitality… that wouldn’t be happening on April 5th. That would be a later date: You’d be talking realistically the earliest... end of April or early May.
“I need to be careful answering these questions, as I don’t want to be accused of kite-flying or raising false hopes."
However, he pointed to NPHET saying 'outdoor things will be open before indoor things'.
He also suggested businesses like shops and hairdressers will open before hospitality, and all of those things will reopen before mass gatherings can resume.
Resuming sports training will also be under consideration as part of easing restrictions next month, although there may need to be rules around how that operates.
Mr Varadkar said: “We don’t want to move too fast, and then end up falling backwards.
"We all had the experience of December and January - nobody wants that to happen again. It will be a step-by-step, slow reopening.”
The Tánaiste said there’s lots of areas where they could consider easing restrictions, such as the limits on funeral attendance.
He said the particular issue of funerals was raised at his own parliamentary party meeting.
However, he said the fear is around 'anticipatory behaviour' - meaning that when some rules start to ease, people are less careful generally.
He said that's something that could set the country on the wrong track.
For now, he confirmed there won't be any changes to the current level five lockdown before April 5th.
He said there's no 'exact figure' of case numbers that would be needed before restrictions are eased.
Instead, there'll be four factors considered: case numbers, vaccine progress, the risk of variants, and the level of hospitalisations.
For now, the Tánaiste confirmed the focus remains on reopening schools and childcare.
With the imminent introduction of mandatory hotel quarantine, Mr Varadkar said there's likely to be "more restrictions" on international travel before foreign holidays become safe again.
However, he does believe there'll be a 'domestic tourist season' within Ireland this summer, similar to last year.
