The Taoiseach said he had no objection to an independent investigation into the Government's media monitoring unit.
"If it has nothing else to do, I would be delighted to facilitate it in this regard," said Mr Ahern. "If the Comptroller and Auditor General has nothing better to do, he can also investigate the unit." The Taoiseach was replying to the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, who said the unit employed six staff and cost about €300,000 to run.
Mr Ahern, he added, had consistently portrayed it as non-political and said it merely collected information in a factual manner and provided, without comment, a synopsis of the main news bulletins and major newspaper headlines.
Mr Kenny asked how this fitted with the description of the unit's functions, annexed to a Department circular seeking staff for a post there, which stated that the principal function was to act as an early-warning system to the Government about critical and negative media coverage.
"The official circular states that the unit will be responsible for ensuring that relevant Departments are in a position to respond quickly to such negative media coverage," Mr Kenny said.
"It further states that staff will need to maintain a constant watching brief on political issues."
Suggesting that the Standards in Public Office Commission or the Comptroller and Auditor General investigate the unit's activities, Mr Kenny said there was clearly a conflict between what the Taoiseach had been telling the House and what the circular to staff actually said.
"This leads one to believe that this is another case of €300,000 being spent for political purposes."
The circular, said Mr Kenny, had stated that in many ways the unit would be modelled on the British Labour Party's quick-response unit in Millbank, London.
Repeating that he had no difficulty with an inquiry, Mr Ahern said: "As far as I am concerned, he can carry out the independent inquiry himself.
"The staff of the unit are civil servants and they play no political role." He added that they did not do "0.001 per cent" of what Millbank did.
A statement from the Government Information Services (GIS) last night said that the notice in question was inadvertently based on an early draft paper prepared for discussion in 1997 before the unit was set up.
"This model was never implemented. A copy of the draft paper was sent in error by way of background material to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform in 1999."
