Thousands of people who tested positive for Covid-19 over the weekend will be asked to do their own contact tracing.
The HSE is to send a text to 2,500 people in the coming days to tell others they've been in close contact.
HSE contact tracers faced an unprecedented number of newly infected people and weren't able to keep up with the demand for contact tracing from Friday until Sunday last weekend.
Those who tested positive over the weekend are to get a text message which will ask them to tell their close contacts to phone their GP.
The Irish Times reports a decision was made not to get in touch with those who tested positive for their close contacts as it would've just led to delay.
The papers says people over the age of 70, and schoolchildren are among the people who are affected by the backlog.
Its feared there may be up to 8,000 close contacts affected.
Local GP Illona Duffy says her Monaghan surgery couldn't cope with the level of calls about contact tracing today.
She says the problems with the system should have been predicted;
