How big is too big? Government weighs future of public service in a time of population growth

详细摘要

An ageing population also means greater demands on the public health service. The Department of Health told an Oireachtas committee last week that in the first 10 months of this…

The era of “endless recruitment everywhere” in the public service is over, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers warned over the summer.

It was a very different message from that delivered by his Fianna Fáil predecessor six years earlier. In November 2020, Michael McGrath said that, coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, Ireland would “inevitably have a larger State”.

While some Government actions in response to the outbreak of Covid were temporary, “we have also made decisions that will result in a permanently larger public service”, he said.

Over the last decade, the number of whole-time equivalent (WTE) staff on the State’s payroll increased by about 120,000, according to an analysis carried out by The Irish Times.

In 2015 there were 301,589 WTEs employed across the public service, which includes civil servants, gardaí, health staff, those working in local authorities and non-commercial State agencies, along with personnel in the Defence Forces.

Chambers told the Dáil in April that at the beginning of this year, there were 417,464 WTE personnel. He said numbers had increased by 2.6 per cent in 2025 alone.

Further increases were also planned and the Minister forecast that by the end of December, employment levels in the public service could exceed 438,700 staff.

There definitely were arguments supporting an increase in public service numbers. Ireland’s population is both growing and ageing. The Department of Finance’s Future Forty report last year forecast Ireland’s population could reach 6.77 million by 2065.

An ageing population also means greater demands on the public health service. The Department of Health told an Oireachtas committee last week that in the first 10 months of this year, there was a 9 per cent rise in presentations to emergency departments among adults aged 75 and over, the equivalent to almost 17,700 additional patients.

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