Irish Civil Service

The Civil Service (Irish: An Státseirbhís) of Ireland is the collective term for the permanent staff of the departments of state and certain state agencies who advise and work for the Government of Ireland. It consists of two broad components, the Civil Service of the Government and the Civil Service of the State. Whilst these two components are largely theoretical they do have some fundamental operational differences.

The civil service of the Irish Free State, as the predecessor of Ireland, was not formally established by law. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 did however provide that the Government of the Irish Free State became responsible for those who were discharged or retired from the civil or public services in the new state, except a few exempted personnel recruited in response of the Anglo-Irish War. The exact status and compensation of such people was further codified in law by the Civil Service (Transferred Officers) Compensation Act, 1929. This had the effect that the state became responsible for essentially all former British civil servants based in the new state.

The first attempt at formally regulating the civil service was the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1923 which was essentially a transitional arrangement and in 1924 was replaced by the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1924.

The result of these acts was the Civil Service Commissioners (later the Office of the Civil Service and Local Appointments Commissioners), a commission of three persons charged with determining the standards for entry to the Civil Service of the Government of Saorstát Éireann. Entry to the civil service was generally by competitive examination, and a number of qualifications such as ability, age, character, health and knowledge could be predefined. Applicants also had to meet nationality requirements. The competitive examination system was created to ensure that the appointment of people to the institutions of the state would be based on merit only, and as such limiting any spoils system type influence. In retrospect however this often became criticised as being a rigid system in which promotion was based primarily on one's seniority and not on the ability of forward thinking or risk taking. A result of this was that the civil service became regarded as retaining its British outlook until well into the 1950s, T.K. Whitaker was among a new generation of civil servants who would "break the mould" and cast off this image.

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