Up to 1,000 backroom jobs will be slashed across the health service over the next 12 months, the Health Service Executive said today.
HSE chief executive Prof Brendan Drumm confirmed that the redundancies will not hit current front-line services.
"We will probably see in the next year, initially, 1,000 redundancies from our backroom staff, which is huge, probably about 25 per cent," Prof Drumm told RTE Radio.
The Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan has already hinted that he may unveil a major public service staff cull in next month's Budget.
In the Dáil on Wednesday, Mr Lenihan commented that he said he would like to see the scheme for HSE administrative staff extended across the wider public service.
PA