Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I do not know whether the Taoiseach has looked at his reply, but the big spenders are not those Departments that survey international activity. The big spenders are the Department of Health and Children — despite similar media monitoring by the HSE — and the Department of Education and Science, which has no requirement to monitor international agencies. Will the Taoiseach undertake a review of this activity? He is trying to present it as if those Departments are monitoring things that are not monitored by his Department. I do not accept that is the case. Is the Taoiseach saying that they do not duplicate in any way the activities of his centralised media monitoring unit?

Does he accept that spending €1 million on media monitoring is grossly excessive? At a time when we cannot fund basic services and where a doctor is dipping into his own pocket to provide €36,000 to employ a nurse, the fact that Departments are spending €1 million on monitoring cuttings and buying in these services, not to mention the cost of staff on top of that, is a totally unacceptable way to devote money. Surely the Taoiseach accepts there is a need to review this and find savings, just like in many other high cost bureaucratic activities that prevent services from getting to the front line in this country.

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