The Health Service Executive has introduced measures to prevent double jobbing by HSE staff working for agencies.
New contracts have been negotiated with a limited number of agencies engaged in recruiting staff including nurses, doctors and health care assistants.
HSE Director of Human Resources Sean McGrath has said that the HSE expects to save between €30 and €40m a year under the new contracts.
Staff who are employed by the HSE or HSE-funded agencies will not be permitted to work for agencies and the HSE at the same time.
Staff who take voluntary redundancy from the health sector will also be precluded from working for agencies in HSE funded operations.
Mr McGrath has said that he believes that there were situations where staff have been receiving 'two payslips.'
In 2010, the HSE spent €49m recruiting agency staff - including €39m on doctors, €36m on health care assistants and €14.2m on allied health professionals.
The HSE is also planning a recruitment drive in India and Pakistan to ensure that it has enough non-consultant hospital doctors to meet service needs.
Meanwhile, The HSE has also revealed that it is anticipating savings of €414m this year on community schemes including the drug payment scheme.
The National Director of the Primary Care Reimbursement Scheme in the HSE Paddy Burke said that to protect frontline services, the HSE had to achieve most of its savings in the cost of transaction schemes including medical cards and the drug payment schemes.
Paddy Burke said that €200m of this year's saving will come by forcing cuts in the price of drugs.
The National Director of the Primary Care Reimbursement Scheme in the HSE also hopes to make savings through efficiencies by centralising the medical card system.
40% of the medical card scheme has now been centralised.
Mr Burke said there were 73m transactions under community schemes each year.
The 50c prescription charge is generating around €2.5m a month.
