More than 50,000 people are now employed in the Civil Service, new official figures show.
The number of personnel in the Civil Service is now about 16,000 higher than a decade ago.
The numbers in the Civil Service is a subset of a much larger workforce in the overall public service – which includes teachers, doctors, nurses, gardaí, Defence Force personnel and local authority staff.
Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers told Fianna Fáil TD John McGuinness in an answer to a parliamentary question that in terms of Civil Service numbers, there were 50,512 employed at the end of February 2025.
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The Minister said this figure included 3,555 prison staff who were included within the category of civil servants.
“This is an increase of 9,575 over the end-February 2020 total of 40,937 (including 3269 prison staff) and an increase of 15,975 over the 34,537 (including 3,247 prison staff) employed at end-February 2015”, Mr Chambers said.
A recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Office in the Oireachtas on public service staffing and pay 2025 indicated that overall this year there would be about 425,000 personnel on the State’s payroll.
The report suggested that the pay bill for employing staff across the public service would be about €32 billion.
“Gross pay reported in the revised estimates 2025 for the public service is estimated at €27.97 billion for around 393,410 employees, not including local authority staff (around 31,984 Whole Time equivalents in quarter two of 2024)," it said.
“The estimated gross payroll cost for the public service (including local authorities) is likely in the region of €32.69 billion."
Of this total cost, €1.2 billion will be a result of pay increases to staff following the latest public service pay agreement.
All sectors of the public service, except defence, now employ more people than in the fourth quarter of 2013.
Mr Chambers said that a policy of delegated sanction had been in place since 2015 across most of the public service for managing staffing levels.
“Delegated sanction was introduced by Government in 2015 to provide offices and departments with flexibility to manage identified business needs subject to remaining within overall pay ceilings.
“Delegated sanction permits departments to fill vacancies through recruitment and/or promotion in specified, designated grades up to and including Principal Officer standard or equivalent.
“The policy was revised in October 2024 to extend to previously sanctioned posts at grades at Principal Officer higher level, and equivalent grades, and Assistant Secretary level, subject to there being no change to the job specification and/or the terms and conditions attaching to the vacant post being filled.”
The Minister said that new posts at these levels and changes to the job specification and/or terms and conditions of previously sanctioned posts, continue to require the prior, explicit consent of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
