This bulletin is based on vaccinations administered up to 10 September 2021. It is the second publication by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) providing insights into Irelands COVID-19 vaccination programme (COVID-19 Deaths and Cases, Series 32). This report is produced in collaboration with the Health Protection Surveillance Centre and Department of Health under the Statistics Act, 1993. The vaccination dataset used is provided to the CSO by the Health Service Executive (HSE). This bulletin focuses on vaccination uptake of at least one dose among those with a record of employment in 2021, aged over 18 on 01 January 2021. It contains experimental statistics on vaccination rates by sex, age group, broad nationality and industry. This release was prepared in consultation with public health experts to help create a greater understanding of variations in vaccination rates across Ireland. The information provided will assist policymakers and public health officials to increase public awareness in the vaccination programme. 

This publication is categorised as a CSO Frontier Series Output. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release. CSO Frontier Series may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. Publishing outputs under the Frontier Series allows the CSO to provide useful new information to users and get informed feedback on these new methods and outputs whilst at the same time making sure that that the limitations are well explained and understood. In using the increasingly varied sources of data available, the CSO must ensure that we continue to protect and secure data. Our aim is to ensure that citizens can live in an informed society while at the same time ensuring adherence to all relevant data protection legislation. In this report, the CSO has used Revenue PAYE Modernisation system (PMOD) data to provide insight on employment status of records of vaccination from the HSE Vaccine Information System. Using pseudonymised identifiers more than 84% (2,011,868) employees aged over 18 on 01 January 2021 with a record of employment in the PMOD system in 2021 were linked to a record of vaccination, at least one dose, in the HSE Vaccination Information System. Additional demographic information was derived by linking to the Department of Social Protection (DSP) Central Records System (CRS). The uptake rates by grouping should be interpreted as estimates. For example, the number of persons who have received a vaccine only includes those who have been vaccinated in the State and would not include those who may have been vaccinated outside of the State. Further, the denominator used to calculate the percentages is all those that have a record of employment in the State in 2021 and may include those living abroad and paid by an Irish enterprise or those who are no longer resident in the State. As rates are estimates, this may lead to an underrepresentation of the vaccine uptake rates for a given grouping. As well as the strict legal protections set out in the Statistics Act, 1993, and other existing regulations, we are committed to protecting individual privacy and all identifiable information from each of the data sources used in our analysis, such as name, date of birth and addresses, are removed before use and only anonymised statistical aggregates are produced. For further information on the data sources, linking procedures and limitations of this report, see the Vaccination Data FAQ for further information.

The main findings of this analysis are:

• Vaccine uptake rate is 84% for all employees aged over 18 in 2021
• Vaccine uptake rates are generally higher for females than males for those with a record of employment, with higher rates in all age groupings except in the 65+ age group where rates are identical. (Table 1)
• Looking at employees by NACE economic sector (Industrial Activity) vaccination rates are highest at 93% in Sector O - Public administration and defence; compulsory social security and lowest at 75% in Sector F- Construction and Sector N - Administrative and support service activities. (Table 2)
• When considering nationality of those vaccinated by NACE economic sector, it is noted that there is a particularly low vaccine uptake rate of 26% for nationals of EU14-27 countries working in sector A - Agriculture, forestry and fishing, which reflects the high proportion of seasonal workers in this sector. (Table 2)
• By gender, the nationality group with lowest vaccine uptake rates are male nationals of EU14-27 countries (39%) and female nationals in the same group (49%) (Table 3)
• For Irish nationals, vaccine uptake rates range from 85% in the 18-24 category to 96% in the 65+ category. For UK nationals, the vaccine uptake rates range from 70% in the 18-24 category to 80% in the 65+ category. By age grouping the lowest vaccine uptake was for nationals of EU14-27 countries, with rates ranging from 36% in the 18-24 category to 51% in the 45 - 64 category. (Table 3)
• In general, there are lower vaccine uptake rates for those who have been allocated a PPSN within the past five years, in particular for nationals of EU14-27 countries at 28%, which also may reflect seasonal and short-term workers. (Table 4)