We owe a large debt to the agency and department personnel who took part in this research, and without whom there would be no study of Irish agencies! We are grateful to all of those who completed questionnaires on their organisation, and to those who took part in the case study phase. We thank you for your time, interest and enthusiasm, both for your work and for our study. Above all, the authors would like to thank the Committee for Public Management Research for its support, encouragement and guidance throughout this study, which is the first phase in a major and innovative programme of cross-national research. At the Instituut voor de Overheid, the Institute of Public Administration would particularly like to thank Professor Geert Bouckaert, who played a key role in supporting this study as part of his programme for an international study of the importance of state agencies. We would also like to thank Bram Verschuere, Anita Van Gils and Inge Vermeulen for their work on the web version of the survey questionnaire. We also thank the FWO Vlaanderen (Flemish Scientific Board) whose funding facilitated Koen Verhoest’s stay in Ireland. We would like to thank Karen Isaac and Jeanette Mair for their research assistance compiling the agency database and tracking down survey responses.