Under 8s GP Visit Card

All children under eight years of age living in Ireland can get a GP visit card.

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The under 8s GP visit card covers:

• free GP visits

• assessments at age 2 and 5

• GP home visits

• out-of-hours urgent GP care

• care for children with asthma

Medication costs and hospital charges are not covered. Visit the HSE website for further information.

Childhood Vaccines

Ensuring they get all HSE recommended vaccines is a simple, safe and effective way to protect your child against certain diseases. The risks from having these diseases are much greater than the risk of any minor side effects from vaccination.

Your child needs five visits to be fully vaccinated 

In Ireland, all the HSE recommended vaccines for your child are free. For further information, visit the HSE website:

• Recommended vaccines for children born before 1 October 2024

• Recommended vaccines for children born on or after 1 October 2024

Flu vaccine for children

This flu season, all children aged 2 to 17 are being offered the nasal flu vaccine for free.

If the nasal flu vaccine is not available, they can get the flu vaccine as an injection

Why children should get the flu vaccine

The flu vaccine helps to protect children against flu. Most children who get the flu have mild symptoms, but children and young people with long-term health conditions are at risk of serious complications from flu.

In some children, flu can lead to problems such as:

• pneumonia

• bronchitis

• inflammation of the brain (encephalitis)

Children with flu may need hospital treatment. Some may need to stay in intensive care.

Almost 5,000 children were admitted to hospital with complications of flu between 2009 and 2019. Almost 200 children had treatment in intensive care and 40 children died.

Who should not get the nasal flu vaccine

A very small number of children and young people will not be able to get the nasal flu vaccine because of medical reasons.  Visit the HSE website for details.