Mr. Oliver Cussen:

I would be happy to try to deal with that. I recognise the absolute importance of working together with a consensus approach. That would be my personal preference. I would balance that with the belief that at certain times you just have to get ahead and get things done, but that is not about steamrolling over people; it is about explaining to people in the structures that are there. You go through a decent process and genuinely listen to what they have to say. Eventually, you may have to say that we cannot deal with everything but on this occasion we dealt with the following, and move on. There will be future issues whereby other things might happen. It is like political work. You win some, you lose some.

The reason I mentioned the Green Paper and the White Paper was because of a critical aspect in which I was very closely involved, along with other officials from the Department, and the issue on which responsibility fell to me to lead the process was a thing that none of the members probably remember. This was the national education convention, which was held in Dublin Castle as long ago as 1993. Every time I mention it, I know how old I am getting. It lasted for a week and was not a major new thing on the landscape. The purpose was a firm wish of mine to bring teachers, parents, the managerial bodies and everybody involved in education together to sit around a table like this. One would say it was a trite observation that relates to the importance of these consultative bodies, but it is amazing how people say different things when they must say them in front of partners. They are not being dishonest, but if a teacher says something about parents, he or she must balance it better. It is not that it is wrong, but when I was in the Department of Education, I would sometimes say to myself "Sure they just come in here and give out about someone else, then they go and we have the problems. Why don't you give out to the people directly, more or less?". It did lead to some real progress. I am not for a moment saying that people do not retain their entrenched positions as a result of this, but one of my strong feelings is that there needs to be more consultation.

I am also on the board of Crosscare, a Dublin diocesan charity that works in large areas of the inner city in Dublin. The main people who do the work are those on the ground. It does give you a sense of the key issues that are facing people. I was chairperson of a secondary school for three years. God knows, there was a lot of consensus building in that. I thought it was probably the toughest job ever. There was no chance of getting anyone to agree on anything.