EPG EXECUTIVE POLITICS AND GOVERNANCE PUBLIC SECTOR REFORM IN IRELAND COUNTERING CRISIS MUIRIS M AC CARTHAIGH Executive Politics and Governance The Executive Politics and Governance series focuses on central government, its organisation and its instruments It is particularly concerned with how the changing conditions of contemporary governing affect perennial questions in political science and public administration Executive Politics and Governance is therefore centrally interested in questions such as how politics interacts with bureaucracies, how issues rise and fall on political agendas, and how public organisations and services are designed and operated This book series encourages a closer engagement with the role of politics in shaping executive structures, and how administration shapes politics and policy-making In addition, this series also wishes to engage with the scholarship that focuses on the organisational aspects of politics, such as government formation and legislative institutions The series welcomes high quality research-led monographs with comparative appeal Edited volumes that provide in-depth analysis and critical insights into the field of Executive Politics and Governance are also encouraged Editorial Board Philippe Bezes, CNRS-CERSA, Paris, France Jennifer N Brass, Indiana University Bloomington, USA Sharon Gilad, Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel Will Jennings, University of Southampton, UK David E Lewis, Vanderbilt University, USA Jan-Hinrik Meyer-Sahling, University of Nottingham, UK Salvador Parrado, UNED, Madrid, Spain Nick Sitter, Central European University, Hungary Kutsal Yesilkagit, University of Utrecht, the Netherlands More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14980 Muiris MacCarthaigh Public Sector Reform in Ireland Countering Crisis Muiris MacCarthaigh School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics Queen’s University Belfast Belfast, UK Executive Politics and Governance ISBN 978-3-319-57459-2 ISBN 978-3-319-57460-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57460-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939925 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 This work is subject to copyright All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations Cover illustration: Joana Kruse/Alamy Stock Photo Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland During the Celtic Tiger years, with an abundance of resources, the need to improve the efficiency of the public service was not as clearly seen as a priority as it is now Ireland is clearly entering a period of prolonged fiscal restraint In this environment, major public service reforms are essential to help facilitate adjustment in public administration and minimise service reductions to the public —Wright, R (2010) Strengthening the Capacity of the Department of Finance (Report of the Independent Review Panel) (Dublin: Department of Finance) On the Irish side, the counterparts at both the technocratic and political level were uniformly superb They were knowledgeable, dedicated, smart, funny and committed to tackling Ireland’s difficult situation There are too many individuals for me to mention by name and it’s invidious to single out just a few so I won’t so These Irish public servants were true heroes in how they dealt with the crisis in Ireland and Europe The nation should be proud of them and they should be proud of what they achieved under difficult circumstances —Evidence of A.J Chopra, former IMF deputy director and lead negotiator for the Irish loan programme 2010–13, presented to Oireachtas Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, 10 September 2015 Acknowledgements The origins of this book can be traced to a series of conversations with Robert Watt following his appointment as Secretary-General at the new Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) in 2011 My interest in the ambitious reform agenda of the freshly elected government was matched by his desire to capture the experience and lessons of reform, warts and all Together we mapped a way forward: he opened the door to Irish government buildings and I undertook to document and analyse how his Department sought to control the state’s public spending after a deep and existential economic crisis, whilst also pursuing the most ambitious public sector reform agenda in Ireland’s history The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and Queen’s University Belfast subsequently agreed to co-sponsor a 2-year Public Service Reform Research Fellowship which allowed me to undertake the fieldwork for this book This work was undertaken primarily over the 2013–2015 period, though data gathering continued right up to the general election of February 2016 This insider access to an Irish government department in action is unprecedented and during the field research I developed good working relations with the many public servants who, though unlikely ever to be household names, worked tirelessly and made tough decisions that played no small part in the state’s very survival And so my first thank you here must be a broad one and is extended to the full staff complement of DPER for being so receptive to the vii viii Acknowledgements project I am particularly grateful to members of the Department’s Management Board for extending their trust at a time of extraordinary challenge and uncertainty, and for always having an open door policy when I came knocking I must thank in particular Dermot Nolan and, following his appointment as Irish ambassador to the OECD, his successor David Feeney for acting as my contact point and for consistently making helpful suggestions as to where I might find relevant information and how I might best make sense of ‘village life’ in the civil service For obvious reasons, interviewees were afforded anonymity—only where individuals were identified in the public record, or were happy to be publicly associated with particular quotations in this study, are they named I am deeply grateful to each individual who gave freely of their time and insights Minister Brendan Howlin was also generous with his time, and shadowing him brought a new appreciation of the considerable skill needed by Irish Cabinet Ministers to juggle ministerial, party, departmental and constituency responsibilities My thanks also to Michelle O’Connor in the Minister’s private office for arranging my ‘fly on the wall’ attendance at a number of events and forums and explaining the finer details of how Cabinet functions Particular thanks must be extended to Rónán O’Brien, whose interest in Irish administrative and political history played no small role in the project’s gestation, and smoothed the way to interviews with some key informants Sincere appreciation also to Patricia Scanlon in the SecretaryGeneral’s office for her unfailing assistance and advice with my many queries and requests This project benefitted greatly from an Academic Advisory Committee: I am indebted to Professor Niamh Hardiman (University College Dublin), Professor Colin Scott (University College Dublin), Professor Edoardo Ongaro (Open University), Professor Koen Verhoest (University of Antwerp) and Professor Matthew Flinders (University of Sheffield) Thanks also to those who took part in a number of academic–practitioner roundtables and workshops in Dublin over the period of the study, including Dr Thomas Elston (University of Oxford), Dr Kate Dommett (University of Sheffield) and members of the Academic Advisory Committee I am grateful to my (then) Head of School Professor David Phinnemore for recognising the merit of the project from its inception, Acknowledgements ix and being consistently supportive as it developed, including facilitating the necessary research leave My huge gratitude, as ever, to my wife Anna who tolerated my research trips to Dublin over several years, managed our small children and the demands of her own career, and still found time to comment on successive drafts Finally, I would like to sincerely thank Robert Watt for opening the door of his Department to academic scrutiny, and for facilitating my requests throughout I hope this work goes some way towards realising his ambition for more informed and probing analysis of Irish public administration Any errors and omissions are the responsibility of the author Contents Introduction 1 Political and Administrative Context 27 A Ministry for Public Sector Reform 59 Through the Window of Reform 91 Shrinking the State: Organisational Reform and Rationalisation 127 Renegotiating the ‘Bargain’ 165 Public Expenditure Reform 193 Culture Reform 213 Political Reform 233 10 Conclusions 255 xi ... spending after a deep and existential economic crisis, whilst also pursuing the most ambitious public sector reform agenda in Ireland s history The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and. .. Ireland (2009) contains a single overview chapter on the bureaucracy in the Republic of Ireland and 8 M MacCARTHAIGH Northern Ireland The contributors to Adshead and Millar’s Public Administration... 253) In other words, increasing returns and positive feedback sustain and reinforce institutional trajectories The cost of exiting these self-reinforcing mechanisms increases over time and can