The chief executives of the State's 11 recently abolished health boards will attend the first of a series of meetings today with officials of the new Health Service Executive (HSE) at its headquarters in Naas.
There will be discussions on how health services should be managed over the next six months as arrangements are put in place for the HSE to assume total responsibility for the running of the health service.
It was meant to take over completely on January 1st, but health board chief executives were then asked to manage services in their own regions for another six months.
Meanwhile, attention has returned again to the deal reached between the IMPACT trade union and health service employers last month before the union's 25,000 health service members agreed to co-operate with the HSE.
After the deal was reached, IMPACT said health workers' jobs would remain "until they reach the retirement age stated in their contract" and would continue to work in the same location, unless otherwise consulted.
Fine Gael's health spokesman, Dr Liam Twomey TD, said the deal struck with health managers and administrators to maintain their conditions while health reforms were rolled out confirmed the health service was "slowly being strangled by an expensive and expanding bureaucracy".
It also suggested, he said, that the needs of this group of workers were taking precedence over patients' needs.
The HSE's acting chief executive, Mr Kevin Kelly, said: "As the health services are reconfigured some staff will, of course, relocate. But this will be done on the basis of their choice and consultation with the individuals involved," he said.