ABSTRACT
By the end of the nineteenth century, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland had an up-to-date and integrated public administration. The process of constructing it had been one not only of modernization but of democratization as well. It was based upon the principle that there should be two systems of government: central government and local government. All in all, the public sector was in an unsettled state in the early nineties, with serious differences of view at the top levels both in politics and public administration. A Civil Service Commission to examine candidates for the service, insulated from direct ministerial control on the British pattern, was perhaps to be expected: the senior civil servants, themselves products of the British system, certainly thought so. The political role of the defence forces and the Gardaí and their relationship with the government and civil servants were critical matters in the days of the state.
