Minister for Finance Michael Noonan is set to meet the interview committee for the Central Bank governor job early next week – and at this stage the indications are that he will bring a recommendation to Government on Tuesday.

The favourite for the job remains Robert Watt, current secretary general at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The other name in the final shake-up is Philip Lane, professor of political economy at Trinity College Dublin.

Dame Street is abuzz with speculation, made all the more intense by the departure of deputy governor Stefan Gerlach. This means two of the three two jobs have to be filled – the other deputy governor, Cyril Roux, who heads financial regulation, is the third member of the senior management trio.

Certainly in government and civil service circles Watt is seen as front- runner, though Noonan has – as ever – kept his cards close to his chest and has not brought his colleagues into the loop. Watt’s strength would be his experience in senior public-service management, establishing the department and overseeing the spending side of public finances.

And the Central Bank, with 1,500 employees and a complex agenda in regulating, attracting and holding on to staff, as well as dealing with the bosses in Frankfurt, is as complex a management task as you could want. By training Watt is also an economist. Lane has his supporters around town, too, and would bring a strong intellectual base to the job.

Would the Government get some flak for appointing a civil servant, a return to the “old way of doing things”? It would, though it would respond that the winner emerged from an international competition and that it is crazy to suggest insiders cannot get top jobs if they are qualified.

Either way, with Gerlach having held firm this week, saying there would be no review of the new mortgage-lending rules, for a period anyway, there is certainly one high-profile issue on which the new governor will no doubt face early lobbying from the government and the banks. Saying no would be the right thing to do.

If, in a year’s time, the rules are clearly not working, then think again, but surely sign of slowing house price growth in Dublin particularly is no bad thing? It would also signal that the Central Bank was being run from Dame Street.