The Health Service Executive has said it is dealing with a technical issue with its medical card website service as a matter of urgency and hopes to resolve services as soon as possible.
It said that access to health services for patients is not affected and that GPs, dentists and other service providers will be paid.
The HSE Primary Care Reimbursement Service website has been down since last Wednesday, due to technical problems.
People who have applied for a medical card cannot currently track the progress of their application online and some GPs and dentists are reporting problems checking if new medical card patients are covered.
The HSE said that the processing of non-emergency medical cards and GP visit cards will resume once the system is restored.
It said that people with emergency applications can make contact at cru.emergency@hse.ie or 01-8647186.
Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae said the problem was causing "awful distress", particularly to sick people wondering why their cards are not being processed.
He said he understood the system is due to be back operating tomorrow.
