The HSE needs to set up special clinics to ensure all young children get the flu vaccine, according to a GP.
Monaghan-based Dr Illona Duffy has welcomed this year's vaccination programme, but warned it will be "impossible" for GPs to handle the extra workload as part of their normal day-to-day work.
Around 750,000 children aged 12 and under will receive the nasal spray vaccine this year as part of an expanded vaccination programme.
It comes amid efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 during the already busy flu season.
Yesterday it was reported that car park clinics may be used to ensure doctors can handle the widespread roll-out of the vaccine for children.
Dr Duffy told Newstalk Breakfast she has been pushing for the nasal spray vaccine to be widely available here, but special efforts are needed to handle the scale of this year's flu vaccine programme.
She said: "We know that flu circulates every year, and we know that children do get flu and become quite sick from flu.
"To be able to provide this in a non-injection form - which means it's not going to be painful for them... I think it's excellent.
"Especially this year with COVID circulating, the concern is that if flu starts circulating that we'll also see a further rise in COVID because of people coughing and sneezing with other illnesses."
'Real challenge'
Dr Duffy said this would normally be a quiet time for GP practices, but this year they're "busier than ever".
Doctors are also expecting to see more children with viral illnesses and flu once children go back to school.
She said the initial indications that the flu vaccine programme would have to up to GPs and pharmacies to provide children was a "real challenge".
She explained: "That was just going to be impossible during our normal daytime surgery.
"We can no longer have full, packed waiting rooms. After the vaccine, the children have to hang around locally and nearby for 15 minutes. It was just absolutely going to be impossible to [do it] during our normal daytime work.
"The only way this can be done is the HSE organising clinics, with GPs volunteering then to work in these clinics - a bit similar to the COVID hubs when COVID was at its peak."
She stressed that GPs will be happy to help with the vaccination programme, but that "it can't be expected that we're simply going to organise all of it".
