Professor John FitzGerald:

I think if you are doing research in a public policy area, probably 70% or 80% of what you do is not directly followed up. If you get worried about that, then you should not be doing public policy research. However, your impact is longer-term and, over time, it may build up, and people may take account of what you do. Working in the Department of Finance, you are part of a process and, even if you think the Government is mad, you may feel that, at the margin, you can see you have influenced things. When you are in an ivory tower like the ESRI, you publish the research and you never know whether anybody pays any attention to it. It is a different mindset where you publish the research and your concern is whether it is good quality research and whether you are right. Generally it is, and, occasionally, as I have mentioned, it is not. That is your concern. As a citizen, you would like to see public policy sensible in Ireland and the fact it is not followed is a frustration, as a citizen. As a researcher, you should not get too hung up about it or else you will want to become a player.