Professor John FitzGerald:

It is totally independent and funded out of the grant-in-aid. It is quite an expensive process, costing approximately €250,000 or more in terms of resources. As it is funded out of the grant-in-aid, it means it would be impossible for the institute to publish one of these reviews every year. We were offered funding by a large bank in the late 1990s to sponsor it but we certainly rejected that. The review is independent of the Department of Finance.

Part of the quality control process in the ESRI is that it is reviewed by anonymous referees not involved in the institute. On policy relevant research, we tend to send it to interested bodies which could spot problems or come up with suggestions. We have always sent it to the Department of Finance and we always get comments back from it.