The head of the Health Service Executive (HSE), Professor Brendan Drumm, has announced he will not seek to have his contract renewed when his term comes to an end next year.
Speaking this afternoon, Prof Drumm said: “When I came into this post I said that I would be here for a five-year period.
"I won't be seeking a renewal of my contract next year but that doesn't say that over the next I don't have a huge job to do,"he told RTÉ's This Weekprogramme
Prof Drumm said he felt his five-year term in charge showed his “commitment for the country” in changing the system.
He said there was a challenge to change the system over the period he was in charge and it was important “to keep a focus on a deadline or nothing gets done”.
Prof Drumm added that he was afraid of staying in the post for too long saying “ten years for me is actually too long for somebody to keep inspiring the system”.
"This is a massive challenge and one we need to see in the context of where we've come from. At least the health service is now in the midst of transformation . . . we have delivered between five and six hundred million in savings a year over the past couple of years.
"At least now we have put in place detailed performance measures . . . we now have a fabulous primary-care infrastructure going in across this country," Prof Drumm said. "People said it wouldn't happen, it will be in place by the end of 2012.
However, he added: "We are going to have to take out over a couple of years 6,000 jobs or alternatively we're going to have to reduce what we spend in other areas, including on pay."
Prof Drumm became chief executive of the HSE in August of 2005. He was formerly employed as a consultant paediatrician at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Dublin, and professor of paediatrics at UCD.
The university has previously offered to give him another professorship at the college at the end of his term of office with the HSE.