Government of Ireland

The Government of Ireland is the executive authority of Ireland, headed by the taoiseach, the head of government. The government – also known as the cabinet – is composed of ministers, each of whom must be a member of the Oireachtas, which consists of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann. Ministers are usually assigned a government department with a portfolio covering specific policy areas although provision exists for the appointment of a minister without portfolio.
The taoiseach must be nominated by the Dáil, the House of Representatives, from among its members. Following the nomination of the Dáil, the president of Ireland formally appoints the taoiseach. The president also appoints members of the government on the nomination of the taoiseach and their approval by the Dáil. The taoiseach nominates one member of the government as tánaiste, the deputy head of government. Like the taoiseach, the tánaiste and the minister for finance must be members of the Dáil.
The government is dependent on the Oireachtas to pass primary legislation and as such, the government needs to command a majority in the Dáil to ensure support and confidence for budgets and the passage of government legislation.
The 35th government of Ireland entered office on 23 January 2025 with Micheál Martin, leader of Fianna Fáil, as Taoiseach, and Simon Harris, leader of Fine Gael, as Tánaiste. It is a coalition government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and a group of independent TDs, and was formed after negotiations following a general election in December 2024.

Government

Membership of the cabinet is regulated by Article 28 of the Constitution of Ireland and by the Ministers and Secretaries Acts 1924 to 2020. The Constitution requires the government to consist of between seven and fifteen members, all of whom must be a member of the Oireachtas.
Since the formation of the 12th government of Ireland in 1966, all Irish cabinets have been formed with the constitutional maximum of fifteen ministers. The total sometimes falls below this number for brief periods following the resignation of individual ministers or the withdrawal of a party from a coalition.
No more than two members of the cabinet may be members of Seanad Éireann. All other members of the cabinet must be members of Dáil Éireann, the house of representatives. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Finance must be members of the Dáil. In practice, however, the members of the cabinet are invariably members of the Dáil. Since the adoption of the 1937 Constitution, only two ministers have been appointed from the Seanad: Seán Moylan who served in 1957 as Minister for Agriculture and James Dooge who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1981 to 1982. Joseph Connolly, a member of the Free State Seanad, had served in the Executive Council of the Irish Free State from 1932 to 1933 as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, and from 1933 to 1936 as Minister for Lands and Fisheries.
A member of the government in charge of a Department of State is designated a minister of the Government. For distinction, Ministers of State – informally called junior ministers – are not Ministers of the Government, but assist those ministers in their departments. A minister without portfolio may be appointed to the Government who is not the head of a Department of State; this occurred during the period known in Ireland as the Emergency when Frank Aiken served as Minister for the Co-ordination of Defensive Measures from 1939 until 1945. The functions of government ministers are frequently transferred between departments during cabinet reshuffles or after elections. On occasion, a department of state will cease to exist, its functions being transferred to another department. Such defunct ministerial positions include the Ministers for Labour, Posts and Telegraphs, Public Service and Supplies.

Non-members attending cabinet

Non-members have no voting rights at cabinet but may otherwise participate fully, and normally receive circulated cabinet papers on the same basis as a full member of government. Votes are rare, however, with the cabinet usually following the Taoiseach or working by consensus.
The government is advised by the Attorney General, who is not a member of the government, but who participates in cabinet meetings as part of their role as legal advisor to the government.
The Chief Whip may attend meetings of the cabinet, but is not a member of the government. In addition, the government can select other Ministers of State who may attend cabinet meetings. Up to three Ministers of State who regularly attend cabinet meetings may receive an allowance. This person is informally known as a "super junior minister". Ministers of state attending cabinet in the 35th government are Mary Butler, Hildegarde Naughton, Noel Grealish, and Seán Canney. Trinity College Dublin law professor Oran Doyle has argued that this practice breaches cabinet confidentiality as required by the Constitution. In January 2025, opposition TDs Pa Daly and Paul Murphy challenged the attendance of ministers of state at cabinet.

Term of office

A new government is formed by the taoiseach appointed after each general election after receiving the nomination of the Dáil. All members of the government are deemed to have resigned on the resignation of the taoiseach. Therefore, a new government is appointed where there is a new taoiseach within a single Dáil term. The Constitution allows a Dáil term of no more than seven years, but a shorter period may be specified by law; this has been set as a maximum of five years. The taoiseach may at any time advise the president to dissolve the Dáil, prompting a new general election.
The taoiseach must retain the confidence of Dáil Éireann to remain in office. If the taoiseach ceases "to retain the support of a majority in Dáil Éireann", the taoiseach must resign unless they seek a dissolution of the Dáil which is granted by the president. This applies only in cases of a motion of no confidence or loss of supply, rather than the defeat of the government in other legislation or Dáil votes. The president retains absolute discretion to refuse to grant a dissolution to a taoiseach who has lost the confidence of the Dáil. To date, no President has refused the request of a Taoiseach to dissolve the Dáil.
The taoiseach can direct the president to dismiss or accept the resignation of individual ministers. When the taoiseach resigns, the entire government is deemed to have resigned as a collective. However, in such a scenario, according to the Constitution, "the Taoiseach and the other members of the government shall continue to carry on their duties until their successors shall have been appointed".
On the dissolution of Dáil Éireann, ministers who were TDs cease to be members of the Oireachtas. However, the Constitution also provides that "the members of the Government in the office at the date of a dissolution of Dáil Éireann shall continue to hold office until their successors shall have been appointed".

Caretaker Government

Where the resignation of the taoiseach and government is not immediately followed by the appointment by the president of a new taoiseach on the nomination of the Dáil, the outgoing government continues as a caretaker government to "carry out their duties until their successors have been appointed". This has happened when no candidate was nominated for taoiseach when the Dáil first assembled after a general election, or, on one occasion, where a taoiseach had lost the confidence of the Dáil, but there was not a dissolution of the Dáil followed by a general election.

Date of resignation	Taoiseach	Caretaker government	Date of new government	Taoiseach	Incoming government
26 June 1989	Charles Haughey	Fianna Fáil	12 July 1989	Charles Haughey	Fianna Fáil–Progressive Democrats
14 December 1992	Albert Reynolds	Fianna Fáil	12 January 1993	Albert Reynolds	Fianna Fáil–Labour
18 November 1994	Albert Reynolds	Fianna Fáil	15 December 1994	John Bruton	Fine Gael–Labour–Democratic Left
10 March 2016	Enda Kenny	Fine Gael–Labour	6 May 2016	Enda Kenny	Fine Gael–Independent
20 February 2020	Leo Varadkar	Fine Gael–Independent	27 June 2020	Micheál Martin	Fianna Fáil–Fine Gael–Green Party

Authority and powers

The government of Ireland is both the de jure and de facto executive authority in Ireland. This is in contrast to some other parliamentary regimes, where the head of state is the nominal chief executive, though bound by convention to act on the advice of the cabinet. In Ireland, however, the Constitution explicitly vests executive authority in the government, not the president.
The executive authority of the government is subject to certain limitations. In particular:

The state may not declare war, or participate in a war, without the consent of the Dáil. In the case of "actual invasion", however, "the Government may take whatever steps they may consider necessary for the protection of the State".

Government ministers are collectively responsible for the actions of the government. Each minister is responsible for the actions of his or her department. Departments of State do not have legal personalities. Actions of departments are carried out under the title of ministers even, as is commonly the case when the minister has little knowledge of the details of these actions. This contradicts the rule in common law that a person given a statutory power cannot delegate that power. This leads to a phrase in correspondence by government departments, "the Minister has directed me to write", on letters or documents that the minister in question may never have seen.
If the government, or any member of the government, should fail to fulfil its constitutional duties, it may be ordered to do so by a court of law, by a writ of mandamus. Ministers who fail to comply may, ultimately, be found to be in contempt of court, and even imprisoned.