The recent assigning of a political appointee to co-ordinate the work of ministers of State was not new, the Taoiseach told the Dáil.
"The position existed already," said Mr Ahern.
The Taoiseach was replying to the Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, who had questioned the nature of the appointment.
"What does it mean? Does it mean rounding them up every so often and checking what they are doing?," Mr Rabbitte asked.
"I can understand the need for that, but there is an additional cost to the taxpayer. Did this emerge from Inchydoney? What gave rise to it? There have been more solo runs by ministers of State since the Taoiseach appointed this man than occurred before that. I presume this is a political appointment to try to weld the ministers of State into some kind of cohesive force or to bring the socialist forces together with the neo-cons."
Mr Ahern replied: "Perhaps to round up the brothers and sisters." He said that the government of which Mr Rabbitte was a member had operated a more communist theory, in that there were lots of people and it employed one-for-one.
"There were 15 or 16 ministers of State and an adviser for every one of them," said Mr Ahern. It was a case of "one for everyone in the audience" syndrome.
"We changed that to having just one for all the ministers of State. It reduced the numbers which was, perhaps, a more capitalist way of doing it. I was trying to get from the communist stage to the capitalist stage so I just had one in the middle. It is more socialist."
He said that the person endeavoured to assist all the ministers of State. "It is a political appointment. The person liaises with the ministers of State and assists them in political areas."
