Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

People might argue that it is not a huge amount of money in the overall scheme of things, but it is €25,000 of public money. The employment of media monitoring services by Departments is a bugbear of mine. In addition to its in-house press operations, the Department is asking a private company essentially to monitor the media. The public deserve to know the exact service that is being provided in this regard. We know that this contract was entered into without any competitive process and it would be useful for the committee to get further information.