Although it never happens when things go right, when things go wrong in the Irish Administrative System, the public automatically wants to know who is to blame. In recent years, certain public policies features have gone wrong, and consequently the issue of "governmental responsibility" is receiving significant attention. Concerning the Administration system, there is a definite expectation by the public that the services provided to them have a decent standard of competence and efficiency (Public Services Review). Consequently, when troubles occur in governmental services, the general population takes notice and any Administrative incompetence stands out and thereby rectified. This has markedly changed community expectations of public sector management and specifically, the issue of "Ministerial Responsibility" within administration. A Minister, although accountable for all the policies in his department, is not responsible for any of the decisions made regarding these policies. A wider sense of ministerial responsibility, therefore, reveals an that the reality of the actual practice of responsibility of ministers is limited. Ministerial responsibility is a administrative myth and this concept needs to be interpreted, corrected, reformed and accepted in order to satisfy citizens in terms of governmental responsibility and efficient public services.
Ministerial responsibility can be understood through the structure functions of the system of the Irish government. The Civil Service consists of personnel whose functions are to administer policies formulated or approved by the national government. Within this, public administration is concerned with translating public serving policies into action and office management. Public administration, therefore, created the Secretaries and Ministerial Act of 1924, which proposed the legal basis for the Civil Service (Barrington). This Act created a central administration subdivided into ministerial departments and local authorities.
