The Irish civil service is the spinal column of the State. While ministers decide, the civil service implements. It is the part of the State that does things. The State is slightly under 100 years old. The civil service is in fact older than the State.  At the time of independence, the civil service in Ireland was essentially a copy of the British civil service that evolved in the 18th and 19th Centuries to manage their growing empire. That 18th Century civil service featured a pyramid-like hierarchy, with clerks recruited as young men serving the state for life. The hierarchy…

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