Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

With all respect, there is hardly any great secrecy around items which are news. This is something to which we have general access through the reportage of our friends in the Fourth Estate. Surely it is a very reasonable request that, in order to establish equality of membership of this House and the associate Chamber, the information flow, the reports from the communications unit, should be put on the internal Oireachtas website so that Members could enjoy the same access as the Taoiseach and his colleagues in Cabinet. We are all paying for this. These are established civil servants. It is long past time that the information flow they provide in relation to breaking news and updating of stories should be openly and transparently available to all elected Members in both these Houses. The Taoiseach's response fails to indicate adequately the reason, other than, I suggest, a stubborn holding on to something which he is not prepared to share. I ask him to elaborate on his position.

See this speech in context