Health Service Executive Chief Executive Professor Brendan Drumm has said a quarter of the jobs in the organization are set to go next year.

He said there will probably be around 1,000 redundancies in the next year among the HSE's backroom staff.

His bombshell news for his workers came as controversy continued to rage over the HSE administration of the health service, allegations of bungling in the treatment and care of cancer patients - and a dispute involving broadcaster Pat Kenny and the man tasked with streamlining cancer care services, Professor Tom Keane.

Keane had been due to appear on last week's "Late Late Show," but pulled out of the broadcast. Drumm, his boss, said Keane withdrew because his participation on the show hosted by Kenny would have involved discussion of individual cases.

Kenny was furious. He accused the HSE of spreading disinformation and said Keane had never been told there would be a discussion on individual cases.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Mary Harney this week apologized to the grieving family of cancer misdiagnosis victim Edel Kelly in a face-to-face meeting at the Department of Health offices in Dublin.

Kelly, a 26-year-old mother of two boys aged three and six, died last June in Ennis General Hospital while she was preparing legal action against the HSE for bungling that she claimed deprived her of a chance of life.

Her family decided to put aside their private grief and go public with details of Kelly's battle after the hospital claimed the death of another woman, Ann Moriarty, in April was an isolated case.

Moriarty, 53, died after doctors three times gave her the all clear.

Public mistrust of the HSE was further underlined with another revelation last weekend from 31-year-old mother of one Lorna McCafferty that she faked an address in Northern Ireland to get treatment which saved her life.

McCafferty, who lives in Co. Donegal, said that after 11 successful bouts of chemotherapy in the North she was finally offered her first appointment for a mammogram at Letterkenny General Hospital near her home more than eight months after seeking treatment in the Republic.

She said that if she had waited to be treated in the Republic she would have already been dead.