Hepatitis C became a notifiable disease in Ireland in 2004. It is notifiable by clinicians and laboratories. Between 2004 and 2013, a total of 12,334 cases were notified. The number of notifications peaked in 2007 (n=1539; 36.3/100,000 population). The general trend has been downward since then with 847 (18.5/100,000) notifications in 2013.

Males represent about two thirds of cases each year (66%), and most cases are in the age range 25-54 years (83%). However, the median age at notification has increased steadily over the 10 years, from 32 to 38 years, and from 29 to 36 years, in males and females respectively.

Information on most likely risk factor has been collected since 2007 and is available on 56% cases. Of these, 76% (n=3,630) were injecting drug users. A further 8% (n=377) were born in an endemic country or were asylum seekers (used as a proxy for risk factor as the specific risk factor was not available). Smaller numbers were reported likely to have been infected sexually, vertically, through contaminated blood or blood products (either many years previously or outside Ireland), or by exposure to tattooing or body piercing. The distribution of risk factors has changed little between 2007 and 2013.