Professor Niamh Hardiman:

Obviously I do not know exactly what Professor Farrell said. I was not able to see him because I was on my way here. I suspect what he may have had in mind is the tendency in Westminster-type parliaments to have a very adversarial style of politics whereby the Government sees it as its business to defend its preferences to the hilt and the Opposition sees it as its business to embarrass the Government at every point. What I am speaking about, in terms of contestation, is in the sphere of ideas, policy debates and the engagement of ideas, not simply barracking and point scoring in a party political manner but a gauged evaluation of policy and bringing to bear different critical perspectives with a view to trying to tease out the politics of feasibility. I am not saying there is a technical solution to everything. Sometimes choices are irreducibly political and it comes to a matter of the preferences, priorities, ideology and value priorities the Government may have which will lead it in one direction rather than another.

I suspect when Professor Farrell spoke on consensus he may have been speaking about a capacity to engage more constructively, through debate, negotiation and the contestation of ideas, and aggregate different points of view to find common perspectives where these might be possible or desirable. I am thinking about things like, for example, really evaluating the parameters of what is fiscally possible in an economy and what the wisdom is of engaging in expansion or contraction, or what amount of fiscal headroom would be desirable to have at a particular time.