Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

As I stated in my primary reply, there is no special committee or group in my Department to oversee the awarding of public relations contracts by Ministers. Any workload arising from the application of the additional guidelines as outlined in the Quigley report is handled within existing resources within the Government's secretariat. Neither do I have involvement in respect of semi-State or commercial State bodies or otherwise. Guidelines have been set out as to how they should operate and from memory, I believe the line Department with which they are associated is the relevant Department, in the event of a breach being brought to its attention or whatever, to ensure the guidelines are being complied with.

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