Professor John FitzGerald:

No. Our job is to call it as we see it, without fear or favour. I suppose we all live in society and I suppose, subliminally, there may be an effect but, certainly, in terms of any overt pressure, because of our independence, the danger is we will over-react to it. Over the last decade, much of our time was spent saying, "You may think things are going well but actually there is a danger there". That was the continual refrain. It was not popular politically to say that but we said it. To give the political system its due, it continued to stump up the money for the ESRI's grant and did not try to use that to influence us. We have never felt pressure to modify what we say.