Challenges present in mandatory flu vaccines for healthcare workers says Cork University Hospital consultant

Professor Horgan says: "It's hard to force anybody to do anything in this country because it's a free country."

Making flu vaccines mandatory for Irish healthcare workers is littered with difficulties, according to the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland (RCPI).

Hundreds of people die from the flu in Ireland every year, but less than half of health workers get the annual vaccine.

Australia has introduced compulsory flu vaccines for all visitors to nursing homes as a post-Covid-19 measure.

President of the RCPI, Professor Mary Horgan, says no vaccines are mandatory for healthcare workers.

She says: "The challenge with that is that if no other vaccine is compulsory why are you making a particular group have it when we don't have mandatory vaccines for anything else.

"It's hard to force anybody to do anything in this country because it's a free country."