The recruitment committee of the Health Service Executive (HSE) is to meet tomorrow to decide how to go about finding yet another chief executive (CEO) for the organisation.
It follows the decision by Prof Brendan Drumm to walk away from the €400,000 a year job last week after the HSE refused to guarantee that he could return to his current role as consultant paediatrician at Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin in Dublin after his term as CEO expired.
Prof Drumm's decision sent shock waves through the health service, coming as it did just months after another Irish doctor who had been offered and accepted the job - Prof Aidan Halligan - decided not to take up the post at the last minute.
The long delay in finding a chief executive for the HSE, which was established in January, has delayed the implementation of the Government's health service reform programme.
The HSE's recruitment committee, chaired by Liam Downey, will have to decide whether to conduct another major recruitment campaign or approach candidates who had already been in the running for the job. Sources close to Health Minister Mary Harney indicated last week it was likely a fresh competition for the job would be held.
The HSE said yesterday that Kevin Kelly, former managing director of AIB bank, would continue as its interim CEO until the post was filled.
Meanwhile Prof Halligan, when contacted, said he did not wish to comment on Prof Drumm's withdrawn from the post. Prof Halligan, who is now national director of clinical governance in the UK, decided not to take up the job for family reasons.