Mr. Charlie McCreevy:

Well, I found the Department of Finance came along and put their views. But, like, unless we want to go to another kind of structure on ... whatever kind of democracy you want to call it, it's the Government of the day that makes the decisions and it's the Minister of the day that runs his Department. There is no ... in the words of a former Secretary General at Finance, still alive I know, there is no such thing as a departmental view of government. There are only Ministers' views. I am some time intrigued in recent times to read when politicians, and we all have done this, try to get out of trouble as to why something can't be done. They come along and say the Department of Finance won't let us. That's only a cop out. If you convince the Minister for Finance - that's the person to go to and he can overrule his officials if it's a good enough case. I am sure if you go back over my 27 years in the Dáil when I was a backbencher, I perhaps used that as well. I don't recall so doing but it's an absolute ... so if the Department of Finance come along, argues it case, it puts some of those things in writing and they fight their case. Then the Minister goes and makes the decision and the Government makes the decision based on what the Minister and the Government want to do. So, therefore, there is no difficulty, I found no difficulty with the Department of Finance giving their views. I don't really understand what Mr. Wright wants the officials in the Department of Finance to do. Maybe to stand outside Merrion Street with a loud hailer or something like that. But you couldn't run any democracy on that basis. I am sure when Deputy Pearse Doherty becomes Minister for Finance and Deputy Joe Higgins is Minister for Public Expenditure, that they will get loads of advice from the Department of Finance and they'll blindly ignore it.