asked the Minister for the Public Service if he authorised or is aware of the appointment of public relations/press information officers for each Minister and Minister of State; if he will give details of each appointment indicating the salaries being paid to individuals or firms; and the public moneys allocated at present for this purpose.

The information requested by the Deputy is set out in the form of a tabular statement which, with the permission of the Ceann Comhairle, I propose to circulate with the Official Report.

The following is the statement:

Public relations/press information officer appointments

Dates of appointment are not readily available in cases where information sections are staffed by general grades of Departments/Offices.

Could the Minister give me some idea of the numbers involved?

It is quite a lengthy statement and I should prefer to let the Deputy have a copy of it.

Surely there could not be more public relations officers than Ministers. That would be an outrageous situation.

Does it exceed the previous Government's total of eight?

I would say it does.

In view of the fact that there are 3,881 unfilled vacancies in the civil service, how can the Government justify so many appointments in contravention of the embargo which applies?

If the Deputy had been here earlier he would have learned that the number of vacancies is less now than on 1 July last.