ABSTRACT
General elections in Ireland produce governments and parliaments, the two institutions that are at the very centre of government, whether making or applying policy and laws. Legal authority to make policy and laws gives the government and the Oireachtas their central roles. The government meets as a committee to decide the major issues of public policy and the measures its members intend to present to the Oireachtas for approval, to coordinate the work of the departments they control, and generally to manage central government business. 'Public policy' suggests broad rather than narrow, and general rather than detailed, decisions. The proximate policy-makers are subject to a number of constraints arising from both the cultural and the political contexts within which they work. Public policy-making in Ireland emerges as a complex process, but it involves comparatively few people, who operate against a background of comment, criticism, and advice in the media, and within the parameters of public opinion.
