Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 1: To ask the Taoiseach the projected cost in 2008 of the communications unit in his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3541/08]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 2: To ask the Taoiseach the work of the communications unit in his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4977/08]

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 3: To ask the Taoiseach the costs incurred by the communications unit in his Department since its establishment; the projected cost during 2008; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6169/08]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 4: To ask the Taoiseach the cost of the communications unit in his Department during February 2008; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10012/08]

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, together.

The total projected cost of the communications unit for 2008 is €344,873 with €135,512 being a direct cost to my Department and €41,872 on average being borne by the five other Departments which have staff seconded to the unit. The cost of the unit in my Department during February was €27,326, with €10,737 being a direct cost to my Department and €3,317 on average being borne by the five other Departments which have staff seconded to the unit. The total cost of the unit since its establishment in 1997 is €2,966,285, with €1,163,359 being a direct cost to my Department and €60,585 on average being borne by the five other Departments which over the period have had staff seconded to the unit. The average annual cost of the unit since its inception in 1997 is €269,662. The unit provides a media information service to Ministers and their Departments. It furnishes news updates and transcripts which ensure Departments are kept informed in a fast and efficient manner of any relevant news developments. In this way, Departments are able to provide a better service to the public.

The communications unit works an 18 hour day based on a flexible rota of three working shifts. The unit is staffed by six established civil servants, five of whom are on secondment from other Departments. The work of the unit means that Departments have reduced their use of external companies and ensures that they no longer duplicate work such as transcripts and tapes.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach has repeatedly said that this unit constitutes a significant saving on other Departments. Deputy Kenny tabled a parliamentary question on the spending by other Departments on media monitoring activities. I am sure it will come as a huge surprise to the Taoiseach to discover that those other Departments are spending over €500,000 every year on top of the €344,000 he says his Department is spending. Where are these great economies? If all other Ministers decide they need to replicate these activities and defend them as being important to their work, it seems the Taoiseach's defence of this centralised media monitoring unit is falling asunder. Will the Taoiseach consider reviewing all these activities? If we are to have a consolidated central activity, we should make sure that these other units are closed down. The public might then feel properly served.

Is the work of this unit essentially partisan? It is defending the Government from the complaints of others made against it. If it is to be in the public interest, does the unit look at where the Government is over represented in the media? We recently witnessed an astonishing event where the Chairman of the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources appeared to be using analysis of media coverage to present a distorted view of what Members of this House and the committee were thinking of RTE coverage. Does the Taoiseach's media monitoring unit provide any information to anyone other than Ministers? Does it provide information to Deputies? Does it line up Fianna Fáil contributors to make certain contributions? Is that within its remit, or does the Taoiseach strictly require that nothing of a partisan nature would be promoted by the unit?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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The unit has five staff over an 18 hour roster and it does not have the capacity to provide regional news items or international news, press cuttings or what is on local radio. The unit monitors the national radio stations and national newspapers. That is what is circulated to both Ministers and officials. I assure Deputy Bruton it has no involvement in party activities. It does not monitor in a collective way — it just gives out its daily news bulletins. It is operated within Civil Service procedures and it does not provide access to any outside sources or any political sources of any kind. It has no liaison with party press officers. It strictly uses civil servants for its tasks.

Deputy Bruton has a point when he says the other costs could be eliminated, but we would need a far bigger operation for that. The Department of Finance, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment extensively carry out media monitoring on the international press and that could be centralised, but it has traditionally been done in those line Departments. While there could be some duplication between those Departments, I imagine there would not be too much. This unit only deals with the national press.

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not know whether the Taoiseach has looked at his reply, but the big spenders are not those Departments that survey international activity. The big spenders are the Department of Health and Children — despite similar media monitoring by the HSE — and the Department of Education and Science, which has no requirement to monitor international agencies. Will the Taoiseach undertake a review of this activity? He is trying to present it as if those Departments are monitoring things that are not monitored by his Department. I do not accept that is the case. Is the Taoiseach saying that they do not duplicate in any way the activities of his centralised media monitoring unit?

Does he accept that spending €1 million on media monitoring is grossly excessive? At a time when we cannot fund basic services and where a doctor is dipping into his own pocket to provide €36,000 to employ a nurse, the fact that Departments are spending €1 million on monitoring cuttings and buying in these services, not to mention the cost of staff on top of that, is a totally unacceptable way to devote money. Surely the Taoiseach accepts there is a need to review this and find savings, just like in many other high cost bureaucratic activities that prevent services from getting to the front line in this country.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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I certainly do not want to see any duplication, but I asked officials in other Departments late last year to look at where it occurs. They informed me that the Departments were spending money on regional newspapers and information that would not readily be——

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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How come they all surge in the year of the election?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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A number of Departments were contracted over the years to newspaper services and outside media monitoring units. We effectively stopped that in 1997. It was a very large cost. The entire media communications unit was cheaper than the cost at that stage. We could extend the service to include regional newspapers, but this is a small unit of five people covering 18 hours per day five days per week, and they provide a service to several hundred officials across the Departments. We could possibly double the service and cover everything, but it might then have too many people involved. I am not too sure we could do that on a——

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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We could save a few hundred thousand euro if we did it.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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We would not, because what would happen——

Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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The Taoiseach could double it and close down the others, saving around €300,000.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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It could not be done with five staff. I could save €500,000 from other Departments, but we would have much more staff in my Department. The five people cannot cover local, national and international media and provide the service to all other agencies. It would not be possible to do that with five people.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Ba mhaith liom cúpla ceist a chur ort faoin aonad cumarsáide. An gcuirfidh an Taoiseach seirbhís aonad cumarsáide a Roinn ar fáil don Oireachtas ar fad? An gcuirfidh sé na tuairiscí laethúla san Leabharlann nó ar fáil ar iarratas ón aonad?

I put these questions to the Taoiseach previously, but he has never given me a satisfactory reply. Given that the communications unit is staffed by established civil servants, does the Taoiseach accept that the news monitoring it provides to his and other Departments should be accessible to the Houses of the Oireachtas? It should at least be placed in the Oireachtas Library so that all Members can access it on an equal basis. Given that this service is paid for by the taxpayer, has the Taoiseach had any change of heart on the repeated requests by Deputies in this House for the media summaries and updates to be put on the internal Oireachtas website? If it is purely and simply a news monitoring service and update, what specific advantage does it bring to the Taoiseach's Department and Cabinet colleagues in their respective offices? What other reason can there be for his continued refusal to extend access to the service to all Members?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will make two points. Any data or information prepared in Departments, such as reports, is not made available externally. In my period as Taoiseach we have provided large increases in the party leaders' allowances to allow political parties to access these funds. We have also increased funding for the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission. If the commission saw any benefits in the proposal, it should take it up with my Department. Done on a party political basis, it is much better, much more detailed and much more partisan than it is when done by a small group of civil servants.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat as an freagra sin. We have no way of knowing what is done better when we have no sight of what the Taoiseach receives from the communications unit, an aonad cumarsáide.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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Information has been released hundreds of times following freedom of information requests. It is available.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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No, the information released relates to specific roles and responsibilities. With regard to the daily reports and updates of news——

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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They have been circulated.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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They are not provided on an ongoing basis——

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is correct.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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——through the internal Oireachtas website, nor are they placed in the Oireachtas Library to afford access to all Deputies and Senators.

Does the Taoiseach not accept that his response to my earlier question in which he indicated that each of the parties could replicate the service through party leaders funding encourages duplication? Did he not also identify a possible means to address this matter through the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission? Would that option not be more appropriate? Perhaps the Ceann Comhairle will note that such a request on behalf of the collective parties and Independents in the House could be presented by the commission to the Taoiseach for further consideration. The Taoiseach will have to agree that his colleagues may very well welcome access to this information when they are next in Opposition, which may not be too far in the future.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Is cuimhin liom uair cheana nuair a chuir mé ceisteanna ar an Taoiseach faoin ábhar seo. Nuair a mhol mé ag an am go mbfhéidir go raibh spiadóireacht polaitiúil ar siúl, dhiúltaigh sé é sin agus dúirt sé gurbh é an t-aon rud a bhí i gceist ná gearrtháin as nuachtáin agus téipeanna d'agallaimh raidió agus mar sin de. Más fíor sin, ní thuigim cén fáth nach bhfuil sé sásta na gearrtháin agus téipeanna sin a chur ar fáil go ginearálta. An bhfuil an aonad seo ag tabhairt tuairimí ar an nuacht don Rialtas, d'Airí nó do Rannóga Stáit?

On the previous occasion I questioned the Taoiseach on this matter, he forcefully rejected any suggestion that the communications unit is engaged in a type of political intelligence gathering and stated that it assembled newspaper clippings, transcripts of radio interviews and so forth and circulated these to Departments. If that is the case, I do not understand the reason this information cannot be made generally available. I presume it is made available in electronic format in the Civil Service system and could be circulated more widely. Is the collection of material such as newspaper clippings and information on radio and television interviews the extent of the communications unit's work or does it provide opinion or comment to Ministers?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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The material is purely a synopsis of the headlines of the day. The unit does not count the number of articles or give any reflections. Its role is straightforward. The Houses of the Oireachtas Commission could take up the matter if it wished. However, the service is already provided to the political system, in large measure through the party leaders funds. Any information gathered in Departments about working issues is not circulated and the information in question falls within this category. There is no other reason for not circulating it. Regular freedom of information requests show that the sheets are no more than a few pages providing a synopsis of the day's events at hourly intervals.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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If it is no more than the Taoiseach has described, what is the problem with making it generally available? The Taoiseach indicated the information is proper to the Civil Service system and within Departments. Given that it does not appear to be material to which the 30 year rule would apply, why is it not made generally available? I presume it is circulated to Departments by e-mail or electronically. Why not circulate it generally?

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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While I do not have a difficulty with the Deputy's suggestion, I believe the Civil Service code states that any data collected or collated by civil servants should be treated in a similar manner.

Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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The information in question is no more than newspaper clippings.

Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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The information, opinions or reflections given by civil servants across a range of issues are not released. That Civil Service protocol is the reason the information would not be circulated. However, it is regularly released under freedom of information legislation. People have stopped submitting FOI requests because they have seen that it amounts to no more than I described. They have put down questions asking for information covering 40 or 50 days and found it is not of any great relevance.

It is helpful for a small number of civil servants to be able to get information across to Departments on the day, particularly if the line Departments are involved daily in responding quickly to issues being raised in the public domain and providing data and information promptly to try to deal with these issues. Yesterday, when a problem arose in the Dublin Port tunnel, people quickly demanded that Departments and agencies explain the position in the media. That puts pressure on Departments and agencies to get answers and give explanations, but this happens almost on an hourly basis. That is all this data is providing.