Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The unit has five staff over an 18 hour roster and it does not have the capacity to provide regional news items or international news, press cuttings or what is on local radio. The unit monitors the national radio stations and national newspapers. That is what is circulated to both Ministers and officials. I assure Deputy Bruton it has no involvement in party activities. It does not monitor in a collective way — it just gives out its daily news bulletins. It is operated within Civil Service procedures and it does not provide access to any outside sources or any political sources of any kind. It has no liaison with party press officers. It strictly uses civil servants for its tasks.

Deputy Bruton has a point when he says the other costs could be eliminated, but we would need a far bigger operation for that. The Department of Finance, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment extensively carry out media monitoring on the international press and that could be centralised, but it has traditionally been done in those line Departments. While there could be some duplication between those Departments, I imagine there would not be too much. This unit only deals with the national press.

See this speech in context