The health service is to introduce new spending controls in an attempt to reduce expenditure in the months ahead.
Areas such as staff travel, training as well as on the use of agency personnel will be affected by the move.
The health service recorded a €218 million overrun in current spending in the first six months of 2025.
The Health Service Executive said on Thursday that it wanted to break even for the year in terms of spending on services funded by the Department of Health. It said it was in talks regarding “challenges” in relation to disability services, which are funded separately by the Department of Children.
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In a memo to his senior management on Tuesday, HSE chief executive Bernard Gloster said the organisation remained “very challenged” concerning non-pay spending.
He said he was introducing additional measures to be put in place with immediate effect.
He urged senior managers to “thoroughly review all areas of non-essential expenditure and implement additional financial measures” to achieve savings.
Mr Gloster said new controls on spending limits would be introduced shortly.
However, under new temporary rules, all expenditure valued at more than €1 million will in future have to be approved by the chief executive.
An exemption will apply for capital payments already approved.
All cost-incurring travel and subsistence not directly associated with clinical care is to be halted with immediate effect. The memo says the only exceptions were for regional executive officers overseeing their regions, the HSE’s chief clinical officer dealing with patient safety issues and four senior executives who are required to attend critical engagements in Dublin.
Individual staff training and attendance at conferences are to be deferred except where contracts have been entered into. Exceptions will be allowed in cases of statutory training required under legislation.
International travel is to be cancelled even where this has been approved but the money not yet spent. The only exception will be where contracts have been entered into.
No further use of agency workers outside of existing framework agreements will be allowed except for patient safety and care, “where all other options have been documented as being exhausted at a minimum of hospital chief executive/manager or Integrated Healthcare Area manager level”.
“All authority to approve any management administration agency staffing ... is revoked as per recent instruction. This instruction is now confirmed without exemption,” the memo says.
With some exceptions in areas such as digital and financial management, “all external professional providers, including management consultancy and similar non-patient-facing services, are to be reduced by 50 per cent based on current use and expenditure”.
The HSE in a statement on Thursday said it was “extremely focused on cost control and the need to maximise savings without affecting patient care, and this week’s memo to management is just the latest manifestation” of that.
“We are committed to achieving a cash break-even position for 2025 in relation to Department of Health-funded services and we have this week revisited our plans to do this, and believe we are on track. We are having separate discussions with the Department of Children, Disability and Equality in relation to challenges in disability services.”
The HSE said “any numbers taken from a midyear accounting exercise are just that – numbers without adequate context – and are not a measure of what we expect the full-year 2025 financial performance to be”.
