Professor John FitzGerald:

I cannot remember. I am delighted I was as critical as I was. The ESRI tends not to campaign. Instead of saying a Minister is mad, I would say, "The policy is unwise". I am surprised I was upfront in any criticism there. In terms of interaction with the Department of Finance, there would have been much closer discussions. There was a cultural change in the Department of Finance in the last decade. It became more concerned about the politics of things and less interested in the technical detail. I would have had less interaction. Also, I was getting older and having been in the Department of Finance up to 1984, I would have had lots of friends. On that, we published an article in 2001. I went back last night and looked at the 1999 medium-term review because of the issues I heard the committee was going to raise. Even then, we were critical of fiscal policy, which is what the Deputy is talking about. The fiscal policy was most unwise and it fuelled the problem. If we had a sensible fiscal policy, we would not be where we are now.