The number of women screened by CervicalCheck decreased by over a third last year.
The cervical cancer screening service stopped last March due to the first Covid-19 lockdown and did not resume screening until July.
The service continues to operate now despite Level 5 restrictions, and women are being encouraged to make their cervical screening appointments as usual.
CervicalCheck's clinical director Dr Nóirín Russell says 70,000 fewer women were screened for cervical cancer last year.
"We screened approximately 139,000 women in primary care last year, so we know when we look back on 2019 that we screened 210,000 women.
"We would estimate that there is around 70,000, maybe 100,000 women who were due their screening test in 2020 who need to be looked after in 2021."
CervicalCheck campaigner Vicky Phelan is also urging anyone with symptoms of cervical cancer to contact their GP immediately, adding that she has been contacted by many concerned women who have not been able to get smear tests.
"A lot of women would have contacted me worried about it, saying that they couldn't get their smears. What I would say to anybody is if you have symptoms, a smear [test] is not the way to go, and the head of CervicalCheck has said the same thing.
"If you have symptoms you need to go see your GP, because if you have symptoms of cervical cancer you really need to see a GP and see a gynaecologist as urgently as possible."
More information on the symptoms of cervical cancer can be found on the HSE website.
