In September/October 2013 senior managers in the civil service and state agencies were asked to participate in a major international survey on public service reform. The survey is part of the largest comparative public administration research project in Europe, ´Coordinating for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future´ (COCOPS) (see www.cocops.eu for details). This paper sets out the results of the survey for Ireland. It explores what senior public servants think about public sector reform.
Views are compared with those of top public servants in other European countries. The results emphasise the influence of the fiscal crisis on reform in Ireland. At the same time, they show that Irish public executives have a broadly positive view of many aspects of public sector reform.