IT IS no secret that the current government and its lookalike predecessor have made a large number of policy errors. We have witnessed faulty privatisations, the debacle that is electronic voting, overcharging old people in nursing homes, design faults in expensive infrastructure, wasteful expenditure on consultants, serious under- estimation of capital project costs and even underestimation of the government’s own revenue.

In addition, there seems to be an inability to diagnose, let alone solve, problems in a number of areas, including health, road safety and crime.

The strong performance of the economy has contrived to mask these inefficiencies to a considerable extent. But the strength of the economy derives primarily from America, which has showered Ireland with foreign direct investment. Thanks to this deus ex machina, the economy has performed well despite the poor performance of the administration.

Policy errors are so widespread that they must be systemic in nature and seem to derive, in part, from lack of skills and over-reliance on consultants. It is doubtful if any proper cost-benefit appraisals have been undertaken for any infrastructural projects, however large, a deficit highlighted by the Or-ganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development earlier this year.

Lack of motivation has also been cited as a root cause, as has a cosmetic form of political leadership that has substituted public relations for solid, substantive achievement.

The fact that nobody has been named, let alone blamed, for any of these errors, suggests a lack of accountability and a system-wide reluctance to accept responsibility. A former taoiseach has described mistakes made by the Department of Finance in relation to revenue forecasting as “horrifying” and the failure to announce any action to prevent a recurrence as “simply unacceptable”.

If GDP doubles in a decade, it is not too hard to hide inefficiencies in government, but system failure in government spending still matters.

Observers who laud Ireland’s economic performance over the last decade point to “reductions in government” as one of the root causes. As a share of GDP, government expenditure declined from 52.3% in 1986 to 37.7% in 1996. One economist, Daniel Mitchell, of The Heritage Foundation in America, attributes Ireland’s success over this period to “slashing expenditures, abolishing agencies and toppling tax rates and regulations”.

In the past 10 years, however, there has been a spawning of public bodies. Government is growing again.

We all know that there are about 15 government departments and most people would guess that there are about the same number of public bodies, with organisations like An Post, the ESB and the IDA readily springing to mind. Think again.

A recent report from Tasc, the think-tank for “action on social change”, suggests there are 482 public bodies in Ireland at present. This is an extraordinary number, especially since it does not include local and regional authorities, executive agencies of the Dail, sectoral regulators or tribunals. If these are included, the figure jumps to about 800.

In 1927, Ireland had three public bodies. By 1970, there were 80. Now we have 482 on the narrow definition, most of which were set up in the past 10 years. The Tasc authors had to estimate this number because, incredibly, no official directory exists.

The vast bulk of these bodies are executive ones, some are advisory and a few are temporary taskforces. They were all established and funded by government.