ESB managers have been told by its board to secure agreement before June to reduce staff numbers by 2,000.

The State company is believed to have made a provision of about £300 million (€381 million) in last year's accounts to pay for the planned departures, which would strip just less than a quarter of its 8,500 staff from the payroll. The programme is known as PACT.

Simultaneously, ESB managers are conducting negotiations with the same deadline on a change agreement with its network technicians.

About 70 per cent of these workers voted against a previous deal last January which was backed by its trade unions.

That rejection was seen at the time as a blow to the ESB's chief executive, Mr Ken O'Hara.

While the company conducted separate talks on the two programmes last year, it is now understood to be seeking a single over-arching deal. Its objective is to put a proposal to a ballot of workers by the end of May.

The company is understood to be prepared to seek a vote of network technicians at that stage, even if no draft agreement was reached in the PACT process. If that happens, the ESB would seek to finalise the PACT agreement in June.

There would be reluctance to let the process drift any later because the summer holiday period would intervene and agreement would be unlikely before the autumn, a year after the original deadline.

The job cuts are being sought as the company faces up to competition in the partly deregulated market. It wants to achieve the departures through voluntary severances and early retirements.

Departures at all administrative and middle-management grades will be sought as the company plans a leaner structure.

Securing agreement with the network technicians will be crucial to a significant investment programme on the ESB's national network.

Constraints on the network mean the company could not cater for increased industrial demand for power in large areas of the State.

That investment is being monitored by the Cabinet's national development plan subcommittee and the company is said to be under pressure to deliver the plan, which is seen as having national significance.

The programme's size means outside contractors will be needed to complete it. Acceptance of the use of such contractors was a key proposal in the deal rejected in January.

Other elements include a proposal to require network workers to begin daily duties on-site instead of at a depot.