Professor John FitzGerald:

I got the impression that, whereas before, the role of the Department of Finance was such that policy proposals come from Government and the officials evaluate them and advise the Minister, say that they are unwise and so on. There was now a feeling at the top that you did not want to disagree or present difficulties, that the culture had changed. They seemed to be more concerned about the institute. They would always have said, for example, we were wrong on some aspect and they would express disagreement but one would know it was political. You know they are playing a game and you are playing a game, they have got to do it and you ignore it. However, they seemed to take it more personally, which surprised me. Where normally in my experience with Department of Finance officials the impression was it was accepted we had our job to do, that we were independent and could advise a course of action was unwise but that if the Government wanted to take such a course then the officials would have to act accordingly. Some of them seemed to buy in to what was happening in a way which was out of character with the past 30 years and out of character with what happens today. This is an impression based on limited interaction with the Department but much more research would need to be done on this before a judgement could be made on it.