Taoiseach is being badly advised over press unit

THE Taoiseach’s spin operation gets bigger by the day and it is a much bigger problem than he is willing to admit. As the weeks go by the number of advisers he has keeps growing and the costs are mounting. On Tuesday, I asked Leo Varadkar to tell us the number and positions of the workers he has appointed since his election as Taoiseach. The answer was long and made vague references to his staff numbers and costs being lower than those of his predecessors. At the end of 2016, Enda Kenny had five special advisers, including press secretaries. Right now, Leo has filled nine of these positions. He has nearly doubled the number of special advisers compared to a year ago and a third of those are for communications. That would seem excessive on its own but it comes on top of the new Strategic Communications Unit in the Taoiseach’s Department.

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The SCU has been granted a budget of €5million for next year. And it seems like most of that money will be spent on social media ads promoting the Government. But it is illegal for opposition parties to use State funds for such advertising. We also don’t know how the staff for this new spin unit were recruited. The SCU is on top of those already working in the Government Information Service. Leo got himself in trouble when he told the Dail he had appointed the head of the new unit – something that would be against the law. He later had to tidy this up by saying that he had only asked this person if he would be available. Since then the Taoiseach has just stopped answering questions about the SCU in any meaningful way. To describe it as “cost neutral” is a disgraceful piece of spin in itself. If the Taoiseach can’t realise that, then he is being very badly advised indeed.