The Health Service Executive (HSE) has appointed a national director to oversee aspects of the coronavirus vaccine rollout.
HSE Chief Clinical Officer Dr Colm Henry said Damien McCallion has been appointed as a 'senior operations lead.'
Mr McCallion will take operational responsibility for the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine programme, alongside Dr Henry.
It comes amid calls for responsibility of the vaccination programme to be spread across the HSE, rather than just the Health Minister.
Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall said on Thursday: "Ultimately we know that the Minister for Health is politically responsible for the rollout of the programme.
"But below him then, who is responsible? I think we need a dedicated lead on the rollout of the vaccine programme."
Dr Henry told The Hard Shoulder that position has been filled.
"I have a lot of responsibility, but I'm not the only person in the HSE - there's a whole team of people working in the HSE.
"But we have a senior operations lead, Damien McCallion, who's now been appointed.
"He'll be driving through all these mass vaccination centres, the Information Technology.
"I'm a clinician, I'm a doctor and what I do is I provide clinical advice and I coordinate clinical advice.
"And I'm very lucky that there's some outstanding public health doctors working with me".
In a statement to Newstalk, the HSE said: "Damien McCallion is a HSE national director. He has recently been assigned to take operational responsibility for the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccine programme, alongside the Chief Clinical Officer."
Earlier, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said Ireland will receive doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine a week earlier than planned.
He said: "We've succeeded in getting it in a bit earlier. The contract was to get it in the week of the 15th of February.
"I can confirm now, for the first time, that it's been agreed that we will get it in the week of the 8th of February.
"It may not be the 8th, but the week of the 8th.
"So a week earlier: that means we can get it out, get it into people's arms and get people protected that little bit earlier as well".
