Professor John FitzGerald:

The Department of Finance has no role in that. We decide what we are going to do. Over the years, the Department has always had problems with it. The Department’s comments come in two kinds. There are the really useful technical comments. Over 30 years, there are people in the Department who discover inconsistencies. There are very few other people outside who can do so and it is very useful. Then there are political comments. We know and they know they are political comments. We ignore them but they have got to say it. Over most of the past 30 years, the Department knew the ground rules and that we would ignore them. In the last decade, the Department became a little grumpier when we did not accept its political views. The ground rules are there in that it can say what it likes and we can say what we like.