Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

The Taoiseach's description of the communications unit is rather charming. It sounds like a downtown library of which we would all like to be members. It sounds as if this service is better than the RTE website. If it is as innocuous and value free, as politically unloaded and unbiased as the Taoiseach suggests, what would be wrong with making it available to all Members of the House?

In recent debates about who knew what and when in the health services, the Tánaiste asked last night for bipartisanship in respect of the development of cancer services, an idea with which most people would agree in principle. If real bipartisanship was to develop on this important issue, a critical factor would be to establish what the Minister knew about the ultrasound review carried out by the surgeon, Dr. Peter Naughton, to which several newspaper reports referred. The Taoiseach referred to this yesterday in a reply to the leader of the Labour Party when he said that Dr. Naughton had carried it out "to be sure, to be sure". If we all had the benefit of this wonderful clippings service, which could be distributed to everyone here at a nominal cost on top of the existing €400,000 cost, we might then be in a position to have some serious bipartisanship. Would the Taoiseach consider that suggestion? Why could information not go in the format the Taoiseach has described to every Member, or why not post it on the Taoiseach's website? Similar services are provided in other countries.

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