Professor Niamh Hardiman:

Formally there is. Irish institutions score very well on all the comparative metrics of democratic performance. We have a very incorrupt public service. We have a public service that has been commended by the IMF on its capacity to learn. It has a very high implementing capacity and very high effectiveness capabilities. What I am flagging is the need we have for a public service that continues to be non-political, which is its role in our Whitehall-type system, and to be the guardians of the public interest and public interest considerations.

Again, it is about senior civil servants being willing to offer challenge to Ministers. At the end of the day, it is the Government which has the electoral mandate. What Government Ministers want to do should not be countermanded by civil servants. That is not what I am saying. However, they should feel free to give advice which would not necessarily reflect what a Minister had suggested in the first instance or which might not be what he or she might wish to hear. We do not always know how these relationships play out because they are subject to privilege and secrecy. One of the reforms that some people have suggested would be helpful in understanding how those relationships work and in facilitating the Civil Service in maintaining its role as the guardian of the public interest is that which would allow senior civil servants to testify to parliamentary committees. I understand they are not able to do this at present.