When Tony Blair, after leaving office, was asked what it was like to be Prime Minister of the UK, he said that “You take decisions, all day.” It is the role of governments to take key decisions regarding public affairs. Those who elect them expect, or at least hope, that they will take the right decisions. Governments often decide matters on the basis of well-flagged intent, set out in their programmes. More often, they are required to respond to situations and events for which precedent offers little assistance.

The study of how governments set about making policy decisions, which is the field of policy analysis, is of great interest: to practitioners, so that they can improve their art; to those seeking to influence policy on behalf of interests or causes; and to the wider public, whose wellbeing depends on the quality of those decisions. The editors of this important book have brought together a distinguished range of contributors to provide a focus on the organisational processes, institutions and locations that contribute to the construction and supply of ideas, as well as methods of policy analysis and evaluation. They have succeeded admirably in their aim to describe and critique the policy capacity of the key actors engaged in collective problem solving on behalf of Irish society.

In concise, accessible and comprehensive chapters, the contributors explore and evaluate the history, styles and methods of policy analysis in Ireland; the types of policy analysis conducted at different levels of government, from local to European; those outside government who contribute to policy analysis, including social partners, think tanks and civil society organisations; and the wider policy analysis environment in Ireland, including the place of deliberative institutions and the influence of media discourse.

A number of recurring themes are explored from different perspectives by the contributors. The search for a model of successful economic modernisation has framed Irish policy discourse, in earlier years without the benefit of much analytical capacity and in more recent times shaped by a range of sophisticated technical analysis, both local and international. National sensitivities have coloured attitudes towards acceptable sources of expert advice or models to follow, favouring American over British expertise in the early decades; embracing British social administration traditions when social policy became more central to government ambition; and turning to the experience and practice of other small European countries as the process of Europeanisation developed.