The Tánaiste and Minister for Health Mary Harney has said the hiring of consultants at her Department will in the future need direct ministerial approval.
Speaking after a PD party meeting in Limerick, Ms Harney said: "Consultants have to be the exception and not the norm and I think in recent times we've seen an excessive dependence on consultants."
She said: "I have decided that as far the health services are concerned in the Department of Health that ministerial approval has to be sought for the appointment of consultants from here on in."
Ms Harney's comments come after it emerged yesterday that consultants Deloitte received nearly €60 million in fees from the Department of Health, the former health boards and Health Service Executive for work on two computer projects for the health sector which have had to be suspended.
The HSE has halted the roll out of the €165 million system, called PPARS, or Personnel, Payroll and Related Systems after problems were detected with the way it controlled pay and other personnel records of more than 136,000 staff in the health sector.
The HSE has also been forced to suspend work on another large computer project
called FISP, the Financial Information Systems Project, amid concerns about its similarities in design with the PPARs system.
The FISP system is at a much earlier stage of development than PPARs but could cost up to €200 million to finally install.
The Department of Finance is understood to have expressed strong concern to the Department of Health about the FISP project three weeks ago and to have called for it to be reviewed.