Health service:The Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has said he would personally introduce a voluntary redundancy programme for senior and middle management as part of radical reform of the health service and the Garda.
Mr Rabbitte said the number of higher grades created in the health service since the setting up of the HSE was "inevitably going to have to be tackled".
Mr Rabbitte also said the deployment of Garda resources and manpower and managerial techniques could be improved.
He said it needed "civilian oversight" and to be taken out from under the aegis of the Department of Justice.
In an interview with Matt Cooper and Eddie Hobbs on TV3's Polls Apart election programme, it was put to Mr Rabbitte that 181 middle-management grades had been created in the health service since the HSE was established in 2005.
And while there were six grade eight senior managers in the health service in 2000, this had jumped to 600 by last year.
"I think the big mistake was that Mary Harney rushed ahead before she got a chief executive [for the HSE].
"She imposed a new bureaucracy on the old bureaucracy and we are left with the worst of all possible worlds."
Asked if he would bring in a voluntary redundancy programme, Mr Rabbitte replied: "I personally would introduce voluntary redeployment and redundancy, both."
Mr Rabbitte agreed that a voluntary redundancy programme was rare in the public service, but said it did happen back in the 1980s "out of necessity".
"That's a long time ago. I suspect that it would meet with acceptance. I suspect that there are people who want to move on. I suspect that there are people with no jobs at that level to do of any value."
When asked how much he would put aside to pay for it, Mr Rabbitte didn't directly answer, but said he had lunch with Gerry Robinson recently who had undertaken a major reform programme on the health service in the UK.
"In his view, it is about good management. The central solution to the problems that we have in the health service go back to good management."
Mr Rabbitte said he didn't think the winds of change had blown through the Garda Síochána which needed civilian oversight and a Garda authority.
Asked how he would face down the public sector unions, Mr Rabbitte said unlike others who boast about their trade union links, he actually happened to have some.
"I have a very good relationship with them," he said, adding he would certainly seek to pull in favours.