Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

What I told him this morning is what I have always told him. The communications unit is not working for the Commission of the House of the Oireachtas. It is part of the Civil Service of the State. It is supervised, monitored and answerable to the Civil Service of the State, like any other State office. Any other office of the State does not provide the data it prepares to Members. This data is provided to Ministers and Ministers of State, along with over 100 users of the system across Departments, from Secretaries General to Assistant Secretaries and Principal Officers.

The data is a summary of newspaper headlines and 7 o'clock radio headlines of which an electronic copy is available to all users from 7.30 a.m. The main news bulletins are summarised throughout the day. It consists of detailed summaries of "Morning Ireland", lunchtime news programmes, early evening television news, 9 o'clock news and current affairs programme such as "PrimeTime" and "Questions and Answers". These are summarised and then faxed or, mainly nowadays, e-mailed to users. A two-weekly library of news programmes, including weekend programmes, is maintained. Copies of video and audio tapes are available to all Departments on request.

This eliminates what used to happen when the same news stories would be gathered by a half dozen Departments and the State paid outside operators to collect the information. The unit is not involved in any other function.

It does that well and as professionally as it can. It works 18 hours but the five people in the unit are not all there at the one time. From early morning to late evening, they update the information and present transcripts and data to all Departments and Minister of State sections. It carries out a good service that is not in any way politicised. It had clear protocols in the run-up to the general election when it could make no reference whatsoever to it.

I do not know the people from this section from Adam. I may have met the individual in my Department but I have not met the others. I do not go to the unit's office. It is not in any way politicised and that is why I react to these claims. These are civil servants doing their job. It is not the same as a political party press office. There is no, and there never was any, association or affiliation with any political party press office, be it Fianna Fáil, the Green Party or the Progressive Democrats. It is an entirely efficient and small operation that is saving the State money compared to what used to be an inefficient system. I have never even walked into the unit's office but if any Member wishes to see it at work, they are welcome. I have been answering questions on this for years but today Deputy Gilmore has phrased it differently. There is no political element to this unit whatsoever.

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