Overspending health regions will be asked to slow the pace of hiring for the rest of the year after a “staggering” surge in headcount.Two senior Coalition figures agreed there would be pressure to get the pay budget back to balance before the end of the year in four of the six regions that are to lose day-to-day spending autonomy amid growing political frustration at the scale of the overspending. One of these figures said the growth in hiring since June was “staggering”, while the second said there would be “much greater restriction on headcount” after some regions hired more people already this year than approved for the whole year. “Anything more will require much greater evaluation and justification,” they said.Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill on Friday said there had been “extraordinarily high” recruitment in the HSE.Speaking during the Fine Gael think-in ahead of the resumption of the Dáil next Wednesday, she told reporters there were 5,000 new people in the health service than this time last year.“There has been extremely large recruitment. We have 3,000 people in the health system just in the first few months of this year,” she said. “So there has been extraordinarily high recruitment.”Earlier this week, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers said four HSE regions would be losing power over day-to-day spending. Asked about the projected deficit for the year, Carroll MacNeill declined to give a figure as she was not accepting HSE estimates.[ Bouncy castle play linked to largest outbreak of common superbug in IrelandOpens in new window ]“I don’t accept the projections because they imply continued hiring in a way that isn’t appropriate at this stage of the year,” she said.The Minister said hiring had to be “balanced up” in the final four months of the year, “as it was not in the first four months”.She said she nonetheless had confidence in the leadership of the HSE regions, describing the spending as an “in-year challenge” which had been managed better last year. “I have to take a sort of longer-term perspective on it,” she said. “It is necessary that we bring that pay bill back in each of those regions. That’s what the taxpayer expects.”The Minister said the HSE “does not have a mandate from Government or from the Oireachtas to overspend its budget”.Despite the overspend, the Fine Gael TD said she still expected to have money to fund new services and service expansion next year.[ Spending on pay being monitored amid ‘extraordinarily high’ HSE recruitment, says MinisterOpens in new window ]Government sources said the overspend across the HSE grew in August, with a “cash deficit” in the region of €700 million at the end of the month – €110 million of which was driven by hiring, according to one senior government source.While Coalition figures said the deficit was not directly comparable to the overall deficit at the end of July – which stood at €577 million – it nonetheless provided an indication of the trends since then.These trends, they said, led to a significant escalation from the Coalition and a decision to further centralise spending control from the worst-performing regions.In a statement, the HSE said it does not report a “cash deficit” and that at the end of July its overall deficit was €578 million on services funded by the Department of Health.It said it drew forward €270 million in August to meet payroll, supplier and grant payments falling due in the month, which it said did not add to the deficit.The HSE said the rate of spending growth had slowed since the spring, with year-on-year growth down from 10.9 per cent in the first quarter of the year to 8.5 per cent in July.It said the HSE had approved 2,889 new roles since June 22nd, of which 1,274 were conversions of agency workers to permanent posts, which reduced cost.Approvals slowed to 363 posts in the four weeks to September 4th, while net workforce growth in July was 249.