Senior doctors have criticised the "bizarre" actions of the HSE in blocking Beaumont Hospital from hiring researchers because of cost-cutting, even though their wages were being independently funded.
In a letter published in The Irish Timestoday, two senior Beaumont doctors write that wages of epilepsy researchers were to have been paid by the Health Research Board and the money had been set aside.
However, the HSE has implemented a staff freeze to cut costs, and Beaumont was told it could not hire the researchers.
"We feel it is our duty publicly to expose this anomaly whereby various organs of the State appear to be at loggerheads with each another to the detriment of patient care and clinical research and development," write consultant neurologist Dr Norman Delanty and neurophysicist Mary Fitzsimons.
The doctors had tried to argue their case with the HSE, but "unfortunately there is no mechanism which enables senior clinicians or researchers to communicate directly with responsible members of the HSE".
Beaumont Hospital last night issued a statement saying "in view of the current financial situation" all recruitment is currently being reviewed by hospital management, "including posts funded by agencies other than the Health Service Executive".
"The intention is to establish priorities, and the hospital expects that posts of this nature with no cost implications will be filled. The issue in relation to such posts is one of timing."
In another letter on HSE bureaucracy published today, physiotherapist Nicola Thompson writes that she was one of more than 400 people interviewed by the HSE to join a national panel.
Ms Thompson says she was contacted more than 15 times by the HSE. Administrative costs of the interview process would have been enormous, she writes.