Don Thornhill, the outgoing head of the HEA, was a catalyst for change in a system rooted to old ways and old value, writes Seán Flynn, Education Editor.

Tomorrow, the Minister for Education and Science, Mary Hanafin, will host a reception at Dublin Castle to mark Don Thornhill's retirement as head of the Higher Education Authority. Thornhill will be remembered as a progressive, modern thinker on education; a catalyst for change in a system rooted to old values and old ways.

Looking back now, he would scarcely change a thing. "People underestimate just how hugely interesting a job in the Civil Service can be. The policy issues and challenges ... have been absorbing in terms of their importance and their intellectual challenge. Other guys would pay to do this work."

Thornhill is steeped in a tradition of public service. His father was a senior official in the Forestry Commission. He recalls chats over the dining room table about the importance of genuine public service.

Thornhill was not always a public servant. After gaining a PhD in chemistry from UCD, he worked for Unilever in Britain before taking a post as an administrative officer in the Department of Finance in 1973.

His rise was rapid. After periods in Foreign Affairs and Finance, he was appointed an assistant secretary in Revenue in 1985, taking charge of taxation policy for VAT and capital taxes. During this period he did two things which would have a lasting impact on him. First, a Master's in Economics at TCD. Second, a stint as a Fulbright Scholar at the Brookings Institute think-tank in Washington.

He arrived in the Marlborough Street offices of the Department of Education in 1993.

By the time he came to Education, he was convinced that the quality of the Irish education system and investment in research could be major catalysts for economic change. Washington also equipped him with a can-do approach which would serve him well.

He is immensely proud of the Irish Civil Service. "I marvel at the capacity for flexibility within the Irish Civil Service. From talking to American and EU colleagues, I know that our capacity for flexibility and leadership leaves others very often with their mouths wide open.

"If you look at Irish performance in the EU; every one of the Irish presidencies has been an outstanding success. This is a country which has always punched above our weight on the international stage."

A German civil servant said to him in Strasbourg last year that it would fall to Ireland to salvage the EU constitution. "He was confident that this small country could get this project back on the rails - and he was right. We are capable of great teamwork in situations like that."

These days, he is worried that enough is not being done to attract the best and the brightest to the civil service. Recruitment to the civil service needs to adapt more to a situation where over 55 per cent of Leaving Certs are going on to third level and where there are many other attractive job opportunities, he says.

"Some men and some women have paid a price for their commitment to their posts at the highest levels in the public service. We cannot go on relying on the extraordinary commitment of senior Civil Servants to work all hours for a fraction of what these highly skilled people could earn in the private sector.

"The question of reward in the public service is a hugely important one. The last Buckley report (on pay for higher public servants) which said salaries should be pitched at the lower levels in the private sector sent out the wrong message."

He says: "We run the risk as has happened in the States of a brain drain to the private sector. It saddens me to see so many clever, ambitious young people who assume the only careers that are worth doing are those like medicine and law. In Singapore, they believe that the quality of public policy and administration is a key success factor - and they pay top rates to the public servants.

But more money is only part of the answer. "Ideally, I would like to see a revival of the old 19th-century model of public service being regarded as a honour and a duty. I hope this is something that we will not lose," he says.