Some 20 percent of personal protective equipment delivered from China is not suitable for use on the frontline.
Paul Reid said just 10% of the total 200 million euro order had arrived in Ireland, and that suppliers have been told not to send any more of the kit that did not reach the standard.
Concerns were aired last week about some of the stock.
Speaking at the daily briefing in Dublin on Sunday, HSE chief executive Mr Reid addressed those concerns.
He described three categories in the delivery.
The first included coveralls, gowns, goggles and face-shields that have been identified as suitable for use, accounting for 65% of the first batch.
A further 15% has been classified as “acceptable for healthcare worker use if the preferred product is not available”. This includes white overall gowns.
The remaining 20% of the order “does not meet the requirements for general healthcare use”.
“We will be using it for other specific purposes, perhaps in some of our isolation units and teams,” he said.
“A specific issue here relates to some of the masks that don’t meet our requirements for specific respiratory masks but they may be used for other purposes, and that represents about 20%.
“We have been in discussions with the supplier as we have identified this... we don’t want any further delivery of this kit in the next orders. We want the required specification that we have set out and we have had discussions with them this week and we are expecting to see some samples with the revised specifications sent to us at the back end of next week.
“The supplier I should recognise has been co-operating with us this week since we identified this particular issue.”
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