Business Opinion: The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) is characterised as the voice of reason in the often fraught debate over how the economy is managed. Its quarterly reviews and other publications are seen as impartial and authoritative, writes John McManus

They provide a middle ground between the numerous other commentators most of whom are tainted to one degree or another by connections to financial institutions, political parties or other vested interests.

It is somewhat disconcerting then when such an organisation seems willing to cave in to pressure from the Government to change its views on important issues.

Take the mid-term review of the National Development Plan which was published last week. The report could hardly be described as a ringing endorsement of the Government's management of the €51 billion project, but it was significantly more politically palatable than the original draft report, a copy of which was seen by this paper.

The changes are pretty significant.

A recommendation that spending on the national roads programme be left unchanged was replaced by a recommendation that it be increased. Equally, recommendations that spending on local authority housing and voluntary housing be left unchanged or cut, ending up being recommendations that spending be left unchanged.

Something similar happened with the section dealing with the the Border, Midlands and Western region as well as the South and Eastern regions. In the first draft - dated September 1st - the ESRI recommended that spending on rural water schemes be cut back, along with funding for micro-enterprises, fisheries, harbours, the Gaeltacht and the islands. In the final report - which went through a couple more drafts - all these proposed cuts were reversed and spending was left unchanged.

The flip-side of this was that plans to increase spending on childcare, community development and youth services in these regions were also reversed.

Other flip-flops included the reversal of proposed cuts in the action plan for the unemployed and other measures for the long-term unemployed and the socially excluded. Proposed cuts in early education became increases and a recommendation that funding for the school completion initiative be left unchanged was transformed into an increase.

The only aspect of the NDP where there was not a significant revision of the recommendations made in the draft report was the section dealing with support for business. A whole raft of recommended reductions in funds for research and development for industry in general went through the revisions unchanged.

Looking at these changes in the round, it is hard not to form the impression that they serve to make the report more palatable from the perspective of the Government. A recommendation that no additional funding be put into the road programme is not exactly music to the ears of Mr Séamus Brennan, the transport minister. Equally, the environment minister, Mr Martin Cullen, would have little enthusiasm for a report saying he should cut back spending plans for social housing or rural water schemes.

The suggestion that the report was in any way altered to keep the Government happy is one that the principal author of the report, Prof John FitzGerald, finds distasteful, although he was happy to acknowledge last week that many of the changes followed discussion with the relevant Government departments.

He points out that the report, as it stands, is far from what could be termed politically popular. Many of its toughest recommendations survived all the draft stages, not least the serious questions raised about the Government's commitment to 3,000 acute hospital beds by 2011.

"We have a reputation for independence but we do listen to people. It would be unwise not to," he explains.

Many of the recommendations were changed because more information became available, he says. In addition, the report was refereed by people not involved in the process. This apparently was the reason the word "cut" in the first draft was replaced by the word "reduce" in the list of recommendations.

But perhaps the most intriguing argument put forward by Prof FitzGerald to dispel the suggestion that the ESRI is some sort of poodle is as follows: the mid-term review was commissioned by the Department of Finance and it could hardly be happy with the changes made during the drafting process.

In September, it had a draft report containing the justification for a litany of cutbacks - just the sort of thing a Minister for Finance needs as the annual spending Estimates campaign gets into full swing.

Two months later, much of the ground has been cut from under its feet by subsequent revisions of the report, culminating in last week's published version. Not quite what you would have hoped for from your poodle.

jmcmanus@irish-times.ie