The Government has not ruled out an advisory approach to rules on indoor hospitality, Minister Eamon Ryan said.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) has called for the Government to delay the return of indoor pubs and restaurants from July 5, until an “enforceable” system to prove vaccination or immunity status can be put in place.

A new date of July 19 has been set to produce such a system, but stakeholders such as the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland have called the proposals “unworkable”.

Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has signalled that the Government could depart from the public health advice, saying: “It’s not Nphet’s job to to decide how we do that.”

Asked if the Government would consider simply asking the unvaccinated not to take advantage of indoor hospitality, Mr Ryan said: “I don’t want to rule out any option.”

He added: “I don’t want to intimate only one option over another option, but I think we should look at a variety of different options, and do that in conjunction with industry, with Nphet and with others.”

Mr Ryan agreed that Nphet had been clear the system must be enforceable rather than advisory.

But he added: “It’s not their job to actually make it enforceable and the reality of that is something that Government have to consider and have to make happen.

“So we have to take responsibility for that. It’s not Nphet’s job to to decide how we do that.”

Mr Ryan told RTE’s Today with Claire Byrne that part of the reason Ireland had been “successful” at managing Covid-19 was because most of the restrictions had been implemented as “guidance”.

“It was guidance that actually got us through. Guidance has actually served us well because the public, we have enforced it collectively together, guiding each other to what we need to do.

“That is the right approach. So whatever we do in terms of reopening hospitality, it is not going to be, that sense of someone hovering over the table or you’re about to be fined.

“It does have to be based on the social solidarity that has seen us right through this crisis.

Mr Ryan said any measures would be “temporary” and could be lifted by the end of August.

He said: “All these measures through this whole process is temporary.

“We’re on the home straight in my mind.

“We’re in the clear circumstances where the rollout of vaccines and the acceleration of the vaccine programme, to allow younger people access to other vaccines, gives us the possibility that by the end of August we are vaccinated as a country to an extent that will protect us and will allow us to start removing all these measures.”