Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We have been seeking a statement from the Taoiseach for well over a year on what protections are being put in place to prevent the abuse of public funding to promote members of Government personally and to link communications to political rather than public priorities. Before the current Government took office, advertising was not undertaken for basic announcements and speeches but this is becoming common practice. This appears to be part of the Taoiseach's stated objective of finding a way of balancing journalists, whom he believes are too negative.

In the past, the Taoiseach promised me that he would publish guidelines on when paid promotion may be undertaken. He has so far failed to do this. Will it be done any time soon? In that context, who decides what publications get allocations to do magazines on various issues? Yesterday, there was a very fine piece in The Irish Timeson the centenary of the Dáil. It was a large publication and I think it was funded by the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Did other newspapers get the same access or what happened with the broadcasting of the event? Who makes these decisions?

I ask that question because I know when we got documentation under freedom of information provisions well over a year ago, it was clear that the then Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Humphreys, was making the personal decision as to how much money each publication would get. That is open to abuse. No one is going to refuse public funding. There should be far more transparency, as well as set guidelines and set rules on how allocations of that kind are made. The Government is otherwise open to the argument that it is currying favour through that use of public money. Let us call a spade a spade. The last time I raised this issue certain people in the media world were annoyed that I did so but there needs to be transparency on this issue.

I have no issue with funding being put aside, in the form of a general sum, in order that public service obligations of the kind that I have just mentioned can be met by the print media. It does, however, have to be done at arm's length in a transparent way and not at the behest of a Minister or the Government itself. That is fair and that is where we should be heading. All of the advertising of the national development plan, NDP, last year was about various projects and specific plans and most mentioned aspect was the new children's hospital. That was the biggie in the NDP.

We know now that there has been a huge increase in the cost of that project, as I mentioned earlier. It is more than €1 billion than provided for in the NDP. It constitutes 9% of the total capital health provision. I will add that many of the plans for other hospitals have not moved at all. The Taoiseach mentioned that inflation was a factor in the cost of the national children's hospital. Does that mean then that the cost for the new National Maternity Hospital is going to go up dramatically? Does it mean that costs for other hospital projects are going to also go up dramatically? How stands that NDP in respect of health now and, in particular, the national children's hospital?

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