15 Ministers, 18 Departments: How Does That Add Up?

Alright, so you might remember from the last post that Ireland’s government can have up to 15 Cabinet members—two of which are always the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. But here’s the kicker: there are actually 18 government departments. So how does a group of 15 people run 18 different departments without cloning themselves?

The Taoiseach: One Department Down

The Taoiseach always heads the Department of the Taoiseach. That’s straightforward enough—1 minister, 1 department. Now we’re left with 14 ministers for 17 departments.

Juggling Hats

This is where things get interesting. Those 14 ministers collectively manage 17 departments. Some ministers head two departments that are closely related (think Finance + Public Expenditure), or one department might be jointly administered (like Education + something else if portfolios shift around). The government can reshuffle these roles in ways that (hopefully) make sense for the country’s needs at the time.

So, What Are These 18 Departments?

Here’s a handy list of the departments as they currently stand (alphabetical):

1. Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

2. Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth

3. Department of Defence

4. Department of Education

5. Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment

6. Department of Environment, Climate and Communications

7. Department of Finance

8. Department of Foreign Affairs

9. Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science

10. Department of Health

11. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

12. Department of Justice

13. Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform

14. Department of Rural and Community Development

15. Department of Social Protection

16. Department of the Taoiseach

17. Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media

18. Department of Transport

You’ll often see some of these combined under one minister. For example, the same person can be Minister for Finance and Minister for Public Expenditure—a double-hatted role that lumps two departments into one minister’s portfolio.

Why So Many Departments?

Over the years, Ireland has carved out departments to tackle specific challenges: health, housing, agriculture, climate, and so on. The idea is that if each area has a dedicated portfolio, you get more focused policy-making.

The most recent example coming from 2020, when the Department of Further and Higher Education, Reasearch, Innovation and Science was carved out from the Department of Education. So we gained a department, but we are still contrained to 15 ministers.

Wrapping Up

The short answer to “15 ministers, 18 departments—how?” is that some ministers simply juggle more than one department, and occasionally departments are split or merged depending on the government’s priorities at the time.

Next time, I want to start understanding the size and scale of each department, which by proxy ranks the ministers.