The Minister for Health, Mary Harney, has said there is scope for a voluntary redundancy programme in the health service.
She told the Dáil that around 16% of staff in the HSE are in administrative roles, compared with around 18% in the NHS in Britain and Northern Ireland.
Ms Harney said she shared concerns that the number of higher grades in the HSE had increased from 521 to 713 and that despite recent controls the numbers were still ahead of expectations.
Ms Harney told the Dáil that the HSE had to manage within the resources allocated to it by Government and that an extra 2,500 staff had been employed this year.
Fine Gael health spokesman Dr James Reilly said that for people around the country the cutbacks are having an effect.
He said that Ms Harney had first said there would be no cuts and then denied they would affect patient care.
The Labour Party health spokesperson, Jan O' Sullivan, said the growth in bureaucracy in the HSE was extraordinary and asked how the Minister was ensuring that scarce resources were not spent on bureaucracy.
