Abstract
The chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, John McGuinness stated in a recent newspaper said that, "actually protected by status, knowledge and powerful unions, [senior public servants] had no difficulty keeping under control those few ministers who wanted to make a difference, as distinct from those who wanted to make a career." He also denounced the fact that "the power of senior public servants expanded and their respect for ministers, and politicians generally, diminished. Balance was lost and arrogance and lack of accountability crept into the system." However, the term bureaucracy itself suggests that civil servants have a kind of power as it is made up of the French term for office ("bureau") and the Greek term for power ("cratos").
Thus, there have been many criticisms on the power of the bureaucracy ever since the development of a large, disciplined and well-organized bureaucracy in the nineteenth century in Germany, as highlighted by the economist and sociologist Max Weber. More precisely, the key relationship between elected politicians making the political decisions and non-elected senior civil servants in charge of their implementation has always been a polemical feature of democratic politics.
