Ireland’s top civil servants at the shoulder of Government: who they are and what they earn

Ireland’s top civil servants at the shoulder of Government: who they are and what they earnHe was seen by colleagues and politicians as a steady hand during the Brexit negotiations, and when Martin Fraser retired from the secretary general’s post in 2022 after more than a decade in the job , Callinan’s appointment was no surprise.

In 2011, after the newly elected Fine Gael-Labour government split the Department of Finance, he became secretary general at the new Department of Public Expenditure, set up to control Government spending after the economic crash. Watt was appointed acting secretary general pending an open competition for the role, which he subsequently secured. In the Dáil, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald criticised the pay rise, declaring it “a stroke”. The row over his pay rumbled on for months.

Despite the scrapes and rows, Government Ministers have fully backed Watt, who remains a key figure in Irish public administration.John Hogan, a native of Birr, Co Offaly, in 2021 became the 18th secretary general of the Department of Finance since the foundation of the State. In June 2009, he joined the department’s financial services division when the government of the day was bailing out the banking system. He was centrally involved in developing important emergency banking legislation during the crisis, as well as interdepartmental work to come up with ways to resolve an emerging mortgage arrears crisis at the time.

After the formation of the current Government, he was appointed secretary general of the Department of Housing in July 2020. He subsequently became involved in a dispute over the specific grade of secretary general applying to the new role. He was educated at St Paul’s Community College in Waterford and has a degree in business studies from the Southeast Technical University, as well as a master’s in accounting and an MBA from UCD.David Moloney is secretary general at the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. A career civil servant, he has also worked at the Departments of the Taoiseach and Health.

Buckley was thrust into the crisis as a senior figure, initially in the Department of Finance, and later in the newly created Department of Public Expenditure. She did not practise law but joined the Civil Service, having been offered a job in the Department of Foreign Affairs in advance of Ireland’s presidency of the EU in 1993. She was called to the Bar in 1996.

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