This book provides a description, based on the source documents, of how the policies of the state were evolved. For seven years the author had unrestricted access to the working files of the Department of Finance for the period – consulting the primary sources for the government and administration of modern Ireland.
The book describes, in particular, how the public service was established in 1922; the men who ran the new department and their policies; the traumatic impact of the first Fianna Fáil government in 1932 and the economic war which followed; the changes brought about by World War II and its aftermath. A major theme of the post-war period is the increasing politicisation of social and economic issues which brought the department more and more into the public eye; it provides, for instance, a detailed account of the origins of Economic Development, published in 1958. An epilogue outlines the major developments with which the department has since been concerned.
