Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I see the merit of the proposal provided the political parties were to agree to allocate part of their political allowances to the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission so that it would provide a bigger, more centralised media monitoring service for everybody. That is a valid suggestion which would merit consideration. However, we are discussing a different issue, namely, the Civil Service system gathering information that is available in that system and under freedom of information legislation, through which it has been accessed time out of number.

Political parties would do this in a much more detailed and different manner from civil servants who try to assist the system to be able to respond quickly to events of relevance to a Department. This is done by circulating news-sheets to various locations every hour so that people can respond to relevant issues. Providing responses to issues that require answer is a public service. During the course of the day, when everybody is working in their offices, it is in the interests of the public that the system obtains details of issues emerging on national radio and tries to respond to them. This is what one does in a modern democracy where communication is an important feature.

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