asked the Minister for the Public Service if he will give the following information in respect of each personal assistant, adviser, consultant, secretary, typist or any other category employed from outside the civil service in a temporary, part-time or permanent capacity or contractual capacity, for the period 18 December 1982 to date: name, rank, remuneration, terms of conditions of employment, if seconded, and, if so, from where.

: I have made no appointments of the type referred to by the Deputy apart from those outlined in my reply of 26 January 1983 to a similar question put down by the Deputy. He is however, negotiating at present with a firm of public relations consultants with a view to their providing a public relations service for my Department generally but aimed at improving the image of the civil service.

: In respect of the two appointments made to date, is it correct to say they they are both employed on constituency work for the Minister? With what public relations companies are discussions taking place or are these discussions confined to one public relations company, namely, the well-known Fine Gael PR company? Are other firms getting the opportunity of tendering?

: I am not in a position to answer the first part of the question because I am standing in for the Minister. Regarding the second part, I am not in a position to give details until the negotiations are completed and a formal contract has been signed.

: I am not asking for details of the contract. Would the Minister let us know the names of the companies which are having discussions with the Department?

: That information is not in my brief.

: Why is the information not in the Minister's brief? Surely it must be that he does not want to release the name because all of us in this House must know that it can only be the one public relations firm who seem to get all the work from this Government at the expense of other companies. Another job for the boys.