The Government has given approval to the Health Service Executive (HSE) to employ up to 108,000 people in future.
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children has been told that the Department of Health Secretary General Michael Scanlan had given sanction to the HSE to increase its official employment ceiling by more than 10,000.
Senior Department of Health official Bernard Carey said the HSE had been informed that the official ceiling could be adjusted from 97,550 to 108,000.
However, in reality, the HSE has been in breach of the official ceiling on health sector numbers for some time. Recently emerged official HSE figures revealed that it had nearly 106,000 whole-time equivalent staff on the payroll.
Mr Carey told the committee that in the first nine months of 2006 the number of staff employed in the health sector had increased by 4,000. He said the adjustment in the employment ceiling included staff not previously included or returned in the personnel census when the health boards were in operation, which amounted to 3,000 posts.
He said it also included some 350 posts in agencies which statutory public authorities had taken over from religious organisations and in bodies subsumed into the HSE.
"It also included 1,060 previous developments without ceiling adjustment, 1,666 approved service development posts - approved for funding in 2005 - and 4,042 development posts to match new services development funding provided in 2006. Funding and additional funding are approved to facilitate an approved business case made by the HSE to the department," he said.
The new official ceiling was agreed following lengthy negotiations between the Department of Health, the Department of Finance and the HSE.
The Government told the HSE board that it would be required in the year ahead to ensure strict compliance with official policy on controlling numbers in the health services.
In her formal letter to HSE chairman Liam Downey last month, outlining the financial allocation for 2007, Minister for Health Mary Harney said the board would be required to provide, on an ongoing basis, demonstrable evidence of its willingness and ability to implement effective arrangements for the management of employment levels: "In particular, the board must ensure that there are no more unauthorised overruns, that staff costs are controlled and managed to best effect, that an appropriate balance is achieved between clinical and non-clinical posts, that there is a better skill mix within the clinical areas and that staffing levels provide cost-effective and safe/quality care to patients," she said.
