The Opposition last night condemned the HSE decision to freeze staff recruitment, claiming it would be patients who would be punished for health service overspending.
Fine Gael health spokesman Brian Hayes called on Minister for Health Mary Harney to explain how it was that frontline staff would be hit by the latest cut while the "bloated bureaucracy" underlying the health service remained untouched.
He said when a plan to axe 1,000 health sector jobs was exposed in the middle of the election campaign in May, both the Taoiseach and Ms Harney rubbished the report and promised 4,800 new posts by the end of the year. "It is now clear that promise was worth about as much as any other made by this Government in the heat of the election campaign - approximately nothing.
"Ultimately, patients are being punished for HSE overspending while taxpayers' money fails to reach the public services they want to see delivered.
"The new Dáil has not yet returned to business but already, with this FF-PD Government at the helm, a new era of broken promises is well under way."
Labour Party health spokeswoman Liz McManus said the recruitment freeze was a direct attack on the interests of patients. It would inevitably lead to a deterioration of standards in key areas of the health service.
She said the ban meant that if a key doctor became ill a locum could not even be recruited.
"While we recognise the need to keep costs under control, a blanket ban that makes no differentiation between the replacement of a cancer care nurse on the one hand, or the recruitment of an additional PR person on the other, simply cannot be justified under any circumstances."
Coming on top of the chaos in A&E departments, the latest cuts raised serious questions about the reliability of cancer-care services, and was the latest evidence that the HSE was not working, she said. "It appears the HSE cannot manage its own money, and the decision of Minister Mary Harney to hand over full control of the health service has proven to be a major mistake."
Sinn Féin health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin described the ban on recruitment as "scandalous".
He accused the HSE and the Government of being responsible for "failed policy and gross mismanagement", leading to poorer care for patients.
Mr Ó Caoláin said while the HSE cited the overspend of €140 million by hospitals to justify the cuts, the failed PPARS computer system had cost €130 million.