Administration, vol. 44, no. 3 (Autumn 1996), 42-60 The role of the Duggan Report (1962) in the reform of the Irish education system 1 IMELDA BONEL-ELLIOTT Imelda Bonel-Elliott is head of the Department of English Studies at the Universite du Littoral, Boulogne, France. In 1962, the Minister for Education, Dr Patrick Hillery, set up a committee of civil servants from the Department of Education to study the education system and to advise on the changes needed. The new civil service committee was entitled 'Coiste Scrudaithe Oideachas Iarbhunscoile. 2 Five senior school inspectors under the chairmanship of Dr Maurice Duggan sat on it. The report was written by Dr Finbarr O'Callaghan who was the secretary. 3 This Duggan Committee wrote a report which was confidential. It was unknown to school managers, school trustees, teacher unions and the public generally. Even the members of the OECD team Investment in Education working in the offices of the Department of Education and who met senior officials there, 4 were unaware of its existence (Lynch 1993). Needless to say, its conclusions were never published by the Department of Education. 5 One can only conjecture that the Minister for Education considered that it was necessary to work secretly in order to achieve reform, especially as the Council of Education had failed to recommend the necessary reforms. 6 This Council was composed of members of the interest groups and its report (1962) was very conservative and upheld the status quo. It is generally thought that the OECD report Investment in Education (OECD 1966) marked a turning point in the reform of 42