Household visits and indoor hospitality will be targeted as part of new restrictions to tackle the spread of Covid-19.
It's understood NPHET has recommended limiting household mixing - allowing one household gather with three others - until mid-February.
Opening hour limits and rules around table sittings and multiple bookings at pubs and restaurants are also proposed.
There has been a further 4,163 Covid cases, while 545 people are in hospital with the virus, and 117 in ICU.
HSE chief executive Paul Reid says the health system's under major pressure.
"Even a lower number, if it was 100, it has a highly disproportionate impact on our health system because we have to isolate, we have to close down wards, there's no one definitive number
"Thankfully what I would say for this week, we are certainly seeing stabilisation. It's a stabilisation at a very high level.
Should this turn again, at a period that we know was high risk around Christmas, this could be really difficult winter for us."
