Derek Moran has been officially appointed secretary general in the Department of Finance and will take up the position next week.

Mr Moran replaces John Moran, a rare private sector appointee to a senior position in the Department.

John Moran resigned unexpectedly from his position in May, only two years after taking command, after a private sector career in banking and a period with the Central Bank. Derek Moran is chairman of the tax strategy group in the Department and a council member of the Foundation for Fiscal Studies.

He has served on National and Economic and Social Council, National Statistics Board and the EU's Economic Policy and Tax Policy Committees. Mr Moran's colleague Ann Nolan, second secretary in the financial services division, was also seen as a favourite for the vitally important economic role.

External applications were not invited for the role of secretary general, one of the most important jobs in the civil service as it oversees economic, fiscal, taxation and banking policy for Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.

As revealed in the Irish Times on Friday, Derek Moran expressed confidence during the boom that the Irish housing market was in for a “soft landing.”

He told a more junior official in his Department to disregard her fears of a property crash in 2006 and to instead toe the consensus line that a crash could never happen.