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In Ireland one often refers to the “public service” career paths when discussing the governance of the state. Boasting almost 900 public bodies in 2025, there is a sizable portion of administrative workload that is created merely for the sake of job creation as a good in itself. The burdensome consequences of Ireland’s never ending public service expansion have had significant ramifications on the civil service proper. Though the use of general service grades is standard practice for the internal management of any bureaucracy, Ireland made the mistake of extending the internal mobility of its officials. Combined with the ever expanding number of public bodies formed out of minor departmental competencies, Ireland’s bureaucracy has become a stifling edifice at the centre of the country’s dysfunctional governance.
With serious ramifications across all areas of the state administration for decades of institutional neglect, it is the Department of Foreign Affairs which is damaged most. Foreign Ministries have a reputation for being exclusive, selective organisations which train their diplomats in-house for a decadeslong career path of public service and representation abroad. For those who joined the civil service before 2004 and after 2013 a mandatory retirement age of 70-years-old was enforced, with pensions kicking in between ages 60 and 66. There is a serious problem with this model of gerontocracy. Departments, such as the Department of Foreign Affairs in particular which is host to important international represention roles, in effect become retirement positions. Ambassadors and Consuls become people at the end of their careers, sometimes their lives, while their middle-aged staff function as part-diplomat part-careworker.
Ireland is prone to diplomatic gaffes, whether be the expulsion of Irish diplomats from Ethiopia in 2021 or the Taoiseach’s recent chastising of the German Chancellor for his country’s position towards Israel and alleged mistreatment of criminals, the country’s political and administrative class are actively damaging Ireland’s reputation abroad. One must consider whether the civil service as retirement home and free lateral movement has imbued an extractive relationship between the state and its employees. The ideological liberal and progressive bent to the civil and public services are also apparent, with the Department of Foreign Affairs making LGBT advocacy a central component of Ireland’s public diplomacy abroad.
It hits at a fundamental problem of the relationship between Irish people and the state. As the social scientist Peter Mair once argued, Irish people have a tendency to perceive the state as something to receive individual value from rather than to cultivate for the sake of the common good.
No clearer is this present than in the privileges afforded to members of Ireland’s ever expanding public service. The Public Service Credit Union offers its members — public service employees and their families — preferable mortgages, loans, and insurance rates. There is nothing wrong with any of those things at the surface level, it gives people greater fiscal freedom and additional decisions in managing their personal finances. The issue is that its existence is indicative of an emerging trend that the Irish administrative bureaucracy is living in a parallel society from the rest of the country.
As of 2025, there are some 400,000 public service employees, of which over 50,000 were employed as civil servants. For a country of 5.5 million people, particularly one as geographically small and administratively centralised as Ireland, these figures should be alarming. For the state’s 50,000 civil servants however there is a serious emerging issue in skill specialisation. It is estimated, for instance, that over the past 13 years, the top ten consultancies in the country have been paid over 2 billion euros. All of that for work which could have been developed internally through skilled pathways for existing civil servants.
Ireland’s civil service mobility scheme is a further issue. Created in 2018 it allows service grades such as Clerical Officers and Executive Officers to apply for a mobility list between different areas of the civil service. The aim of such a programme is no doubt to produce administrative generalists who could gather competencies in several subject areas. But as the saying goes, ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ the Irish civil service has only created a further mechanism to stifle specialisation.
With the expansion of this programme from 2020 onwards, which included a mechanism to facilitate transfers into the Department of Foreign Affairs, the scheme continued to operate to this day. Though there are eligibility criteria to meet the role a civil servant transfers into, the ramifications for this policy on the already fraying structure of the Department of Foreign Affairs is concerning.
If the civil service, and especially the Irish Foreign Ministry, are no longer governed by a promotion policy driven by meritocracy, they cannot function properly. If the upper echelons of the state’s administration are occupied by a gerontocracy of people who feel it is ‘their turn’ to hold the highest offices in the state and routinely exercise policy in a manner which raises serious questions about the nature of the democratic mandate in Ireland, it is extremely damaging to transparency and accountability in Irish politics.
Irish politicians might be keen to shirk blame and responsibility, there is one taboo which they will almost never break: blaming the civil service. Mary Lou McDonald, the leader of the opposition came under fire for calling parts of the civil service constipated while government ministers stood one and all to defend them. The relationship between the Fianna Fail–Fine Gael government and the civil service is mutually parasitic and perfectly shows how Ireland is stuck today. The civil service implements and generates public policy, while the political class require sound bites and local success to guarantee their reelection. As such, the civil service are handed the mandate by the politician while the politician receives his local pet project in return.
But why is it like this? One reason is the absurd fact that the civil service in Ireland were allowed to unionise. Trade unions can have positive impacts and negative ones depending on their sector, their goals, and certainly their leadership. However, the very thought that the civil service — employees of the state responsible for its administrative functions — can threaten to withhold their labour in return for pay rises taken out of the public exchequer is an utter disgrace. If they serve at the pleasure of the state, then their labour should be replaceable and they should never be allowed to join groups such as trade unions which would create a conflict of interest vis-a-vis the civil service and the state.
With the barrier to entry for the public service having been lowered continually over the past decades, and the Public Appointments Service in 2004 formed to manage state employment, the government no longer holds the discretion they once had to exercise their democratic mandate. Instead, they have become comfortable with inaction, allowing the permanent state to expand and to shield itself from public accountability. The advent of publicjobs.ie and the digital age has further driven demand and access to state-funded jobs, cementing their transformation into a quasi-welfare system of public employment and low productivity.
There are a number of serious reforms which Ireland needs in order to ensure its governance is sustainable, efficient, and results-oriented. The reformation of the civil service — meaning lay-offs, increased flexibility, increasing oversight, and advanced training — are essential components of any future solutions.