Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach listed a number of vacancies in his reply. There are vacancies for an assistant Government press secretary, two of four press officer positions and three executive officer equivalents in the communications and media assistant area. Is it the Taoiseach's intention to fill all of these, will that be done in the normal way through the Civil Service recruitment process or will specialists be brought in? The Taoiseach said he wanted to restructure the Government Information Service. What does he have in mind in particular? Will the new unit with responsibility for strategic communications across Government be housed within the Government Information Service and serve under the head of that service? Is that how it is to work? Is it a link between press officers in Departments to provide better information? How is it to work?

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