Many files that went missing were sent to the wrong GPs.
The HSE recorded over 2,000 data-protection breaches last year.
They include patients' files getting lost, and hospital charts going missing.
According to freedom of information files, 2,035 data breaches were recorded by the health service in 2021.
Many were because patients' files went missing, were sent to the wrong service-users, incorrect GPs or pharmacies.
In one case, a list of patients was found on the grounds of Galway University Hospitals.
And a similar document, from Letterkenny University Hospital, was located outside a public premises.
In a data breach in Sligo, personal data was wrongly shared with a client's ex-partner.
A folded letter from BreastCheck was franked and posted, without an envelope.
However, Solicitor Jason O'Sullivan says many data-breaches are down to human error.
There were over 1,000 data breaches relating to the Digital Covid Cert - with people getting them by mistake, as a result of errors with processing.

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