The figures have emerged in a parliamentary response to former taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who asked about delays faced by people in getting HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) which can be used by men or women who are negative for the virus to reduce their risk of contracting it.
People who use PrEP must commit to taking the drug every day.
It has been shown to reduce the risk of HIV infection by up to 92pc.
The drug is given free by the HSE to certain groups and it can also be bought through community pharmacies with a prescription.
In its response to the questions about delays, the HSE said its health and well-being section receives quarterly reports on reimbursements made to community pharmacies for dispensing free PrEP medication.
“This data is provided nationally and used to monitor the programme. In 2023, 6,852 people had eligibility for free PrEP medication approved by their PrEP provider,” it said. “This is used as an estimate of the number of individuals attending PrEP services over a given time period.
“During the same timeframe, 5,273 individuals received free PrEP medication at least once. Of these, 1,322 received free PrEP for the first time.”
In the first quarter of this year, 6,248 people had eligibility for free PrEP medication. It said the HSE’s Sexual Health and Crisis Pregnancy Programme acknowledges that there are many reports of individuals facing challenges in seeking PrEP appointments.
“Services report challenges in meeting new appointment requests and have made significant efforts to improve access within available resources,” it said.
“Many services do not maintain PrEP waiting lists. One Dublin-based public PrEP service that does maintain a waiting list reports over 1,000 people on their waiting list. Where waiting lists are maintained, they need to be interpreted with caution. Services report that when they contact individuals on their waiting list to offer them an appointment, a proportion are already engaged with a different PrEP service.
“In addition, some individuals who attend a service for the first time are seeking to transfer their care to a more convenient location rather than actually access PrEP for the first time.”
Currently there are 13 public PrEP clinics in Ireland, four of which are in Dublin, and 17 GPs are approved to prescribe it, with 15 of those in Dublin.
