The CEO of the HSE Paul Reid has said the health service's COVID-19 vaccination portal has been strengthened to prevent people from abusing it.
His comments follow reports that cleaners, kitchen staff and administration workers at a charity in Limerick have been vaccinated against the virus.
The Irish Mail on Sunday reports almost 70 employees at the Northside Family Resource Centre falsely represented themselves as frontline healthcare workers on the HSE's vaccination portal.
The paper says they were instructed to do by the CEO of the centre, who warned them not to speak of their inoculation.
Speaking earlier today, Paul Reid that immunisation programmes must be underpinned by trust in order to operate effectively.
"The whole programme of vaccinations in this country, and indeed in any country, is based on a high level of trust," he said.
"It's certainly geared towards, in the first instance, protecting those that are most vulnerable or most liable of risk of hospitalisation, severe disease, ICU and mortality.
"I have to say for the vast, vast majority of the close to one million doses that we will have completed by the end of this week, that trust remains very strong and the vast majority of the public are awaiting their turn for the vaccine.
"It is very frustrating, it's annoying and it breaches the basic tenet of what the programme is all about when incidents like that happen or other incidents that are high profile which we know have happened."
