The Head of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has warned that public servants will have to continue to reform the way they work and improve productivity.
Secretary General Robert Watt was speaking at the publication of new research on public attitudes to the civil service.
In recent weeks, a number of unions have warned that they will resist any attempts to impose further productivity in return for the restoration of pay cuts.
They have also signalled they will seek the reversal of reforms, including longer working hours, when public sector pay restoration talks get under way next week.
The issue is set to be hotly debated at this week's union conferences of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation, IMPACT and the Civil Public and Services Union.
Mr Watt said that every organisation in the public and private sectors had to keep changing and delivering more for its customers, describing this as an ongoing process.
He said that despite the improving economic situation, the Government would continue to face demographic and budgetary pressures and would have to deliver more with the same or less.
He also voiced concern about the age profile of the civil service where the median age is 48.
Mr Watt said they had commenced a recruitment drive to target gaps and specialists, but cautioned there would be no return to the pre-2008 staffing levels of the civil service, which reached almost 39,000.
