The number of civil and public servants reached 330,500 in 2018. This is above the previous peak of recent times, which was reached in 2009.

The biggest number (118,000) were employed in the health services, followed by education (107,000). There were 38,000 civil servants, 28,000 local authority employees and 13,700 working in non-commercial semi-state organisations.

The figures are set out in the Public Service Performance Report, 2018, which was published earlier this month.

The report also shows gross current expenditure of €57 billion, plus €6 billion of capital expenditure last year.

An impressive list of public service outputs included 930,000 students in primary and post-primary education, 1.5 million people accessing health professional or community health services, and 333,000 benefit payments and over 600,000 pension payments each week.