asked the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs if he will state in respect of his Department and any public service groups under the aegis of his Department, which groups, if any, receive a telephone allowance; the criteria for determining eligibility for such an allowance; the amount of the allowance; and the amount paid in each of the last five years in respect of such allowance.

Officials of the Department, mostly technical staff, who need to be contacted regularly on official business outside normal working hours are provided with rent-free telephones, for which no connection charge is made. In addition, the technical staff involved who provide an emergency fault repair service outside normal hours get the equivalent of 50 free local calls per quarter to compensate for calls made on official business from these phones. The cost of providing these facilities is not readily available but is estimated at the equivalent of about £150,000 a year at present.

RTE are the only public service group under my aegis. I have no statutory function regarding the provision of telephone allowances by Radio Telefís Éireann for their staff.

How many employees in the Department have the use of the free rental facilities? I presume the same number of staff would be covered by the cost of £150,000.

There are 960 technical staff and 140 administrative staff.