Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Minister for Health and Children stated that, until last Wednesday, she did not know of the review of ultrasounds in Portlaoise. Sometime beforehand, newspapers had reported that such a review was being carried out. Did the communications unit miss that story as well or was it communicated to the Department of Health and Children?

My difficulty in this regard and with the Taoiseach's reply to Deputy Kenny is that the communications unit seems to be doing no more than scanning the headlines and providing a service to Departments that they could easily get by clicking onto any number of websites to see the day's news headlines. When we put it to the Taoiseach previously that the unit, for which the taxpayer pays €400,000 per year, was effectively a political operation and that it was in place to provide political spying and reporting on the press and critics of the Government, he told the House that it provided a great public service and would provide information to Departments alerting them of stories in newspapers concerning important public events. It is not a scanning-the-headlines job. It is trawling the newspapers and finding the stories, whether in respect of Aer Lingus at Shannon or the ultrasounds review, to alert Departments and Ministers.

Is this outfit, which costs almost €400,000 per year, doing its job properly? Given the Taoiseach's answer, it is difficult to know what it does for 18 hours per day, which is a long time to read newspapers, and for the money in question if it is not doing what we suspect it of doing, namely, finding out how many times Professor John Crown appears on RTE and reporting such to the Minister for Health and Children.

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