The next phase of the Laura Brennan HPV Vaccine Catch-Up Programme has been announced, beginning with students in fifth and sixth year of post-primary school.
The initiative is designed to offer a further opportunity to young people, both male and female, who may have missed earlier opportunities to receive the vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus infection.
The programme will be delivered, primarily through schools, by the Health Service Executive.
It "continues the legacy of Laura Brennan whose advocacy transformed HPV vaccine uptake in Ireland," a Department of Health statement said.
Free HPV vaccines will be provided to fifth and sixth year students between now and August.
They will be available to students from second to fifth year in the 2026/2027 academic year.
Parents and guardians have been advised that if a child was home-educated, born between 1 September 2006 and 31 August 2009, and did not receive the HPV vaccine in first year of post-primary school, it is still available for free.
The department statement also said that "it is important to remember that the most effective time to get the HPV vaccine is when it is first offered.
"The routine school-based immunisation programme, which offers the HPV vaccine to first-year students in post-primary school nationally, will continue as normal throughout 2026."
Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said that receiving the vaccine in post-primary school "is an important early measure in reducing the risk of cervical cancer later in life.
"Additionally, attending - when invited - for free regular cervical screening through the HSE's CervicalCheck programme between the ages of 25 and 65 offers further protection.
"Increasing HPV vaccination coverage is a key step towards achieving cervical cancer elimination by 2040 and making cervical cancer a rare disease in Ireland in the coming years," she added.
The Laura Brennan HPV Vaccine Catch-Up programme was initially launched in 2022.
The campaigner, who was one of Ireland's leading patient advocates, died from cervical cancer in March 2019 at the age of 26.
Her mother, Bernadette Brennan, said the "extension of the programme will undoubtedly save more lives from HPV-related cancers.
"As Laura so powerfully said: 'This vaccine saves lives. It could have saved mine'."
