Mr. John McCarthy:

Two points on that. I think John FitzGerald, when he was in this chair, made reference to two sets of interactions between the ESRI and the Department. He referred to technical level discussions and he referred to political level discussions. He was quite complimentary regarding the technical level discussions and those technical level discussions would have involved myself and some of my team. He expressed concern about the over-politicisation of some of the ... well, maybe I'll ... of some of the comments coming from other parts, or more senior levels, within the Department. They were very political. He was complimentary on the technical discussions. He has also ... my second point is he has also been very complimentary of the various changes that have taken place within the Department over the past couple of years: the fact that we now publish working papers; the fact that we now publish technical papers; that I speak at conferences, both domestically and internationally; that my team speak at conferences; that people have published in the Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland; The Economic and Social Review. He has been quite complimentary about the technical capacity of the Department; less so about the over-politicisation of some of the-----