ROBERT WATT, who has been promoted to secretary general of the newly-formed Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, is the only high-ranking civil servant to be appointed from the private sector in recent years.

Mr Watt (41) was an economist with economic consultancy Indecon before being appointed as an assistant secretary at the Department of Finance in 2008.

Since 2007, when high-ranking jobs in the Civil Service were opened to applicants from the private sector, he has been the only one of 314 applicants to have secured one of the 82 jobs.

Mr Watt holds a masters degree in economics.

While at Indecon in 2007 he wrote articles for national newspapers, dismissing the predictions of University College Dublin economist Morgan Kelly and others of an economic crash caused by the property sector.

In June 2007, he made it clear he did not agree with an “alarmist perspective” that posited an economy which was dangerously dependent on the construction sector which would lead the economy into a recession, not just a slowdown.

“This is a minority view but it tends to make a lot of noise. However, before accepting our impending doom, there are a number of points worth considering.”

Mr Watt went on to say there was a slowdown in construction but argued that it was manageable. He said it could lead to a fall in employment in construction of between 15,000 to 20,000 which would lead to a “modest demand-side shock to the economy as a whole”.