Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I can have the details on individual staff costs, and so on sent to the Deputy. The overall objective is to ensure that all parts of Government are aware of key issues across a wide range of media outlets. The media, the Opposition and the citizens expect Ministers and officials to be fully up to date on such issues so that they can respond to them. The situation was assessed by a panel of officials including managers from the Government Information Service, GIS, and the Department's head of information technology. I understand that when a formal tender process was made the bids were in excess of the costs at which we provide the service at present. The present cost of the unit as provided by staff is much cheaper than it would be if done any other way. The unit has a small number of staff and uses cheap but effective technology in addition to the e-mail network for dissemination. The alternative would be to decentralise the function in full to individual Departments. It is clear that this would involve far more duplication, as people across all Departments would have to do what is currently done centrally. The alternative of doing everything centrally is not realistic, given the ongoing need for monitoring items of particular interest in each Department. It cannot be a question of total centralisation or total decentralisation.

See this speech in context