Rages of spin
angry Micheal Martin blast’s leo’s new €5million pr unit as a political use and abuse of taxpayers’ money
MICHEAL Martin has blasted Leo Varadkar’s €5million “spin machine” as a “politicisation” of taxpayers’ money and an abuse of our hard-earned cash.
It is against ethics rules to use State funds for party political ends and Fine Gael has repeatedly denied this is what the Strategic Communications Unit is doing.
But the Fianna Fail leader claims the SCU is being used unfairly to boost the profiles of individual government ministers – and we are footing the bill.
He told the Irish Mirror: “The Strategic Communications Unit represents the largest effort that I’ve ever seen of the politicisation and the utilisation and abuse of taxpayers’ money for the furtherance of political ends.
“This isn’t about information giving in the strictest sense, this is about politicising Government ads and things like that.”
The setting up of the SCU was announced in September after the summer recess. But it has been at the centre of many Dail debates since then, especially when it emerged in the Budget that the supposedly costneutral unit would need €5million this year.
Last month the Taoiseach confirmed the SCU has grown from six to 11 people.
Mr Martin told the Dail he found it unusual that, for instance, it could take up to a year to get “two or three personnel for a Brexit role, yet the SCU can get up and running so quickly and with such ease”.
Mr Varadkar has repeatedly defended his spin machine, insisting it would be cost-neutral. After being quizzed on the unit by Mr Martin, Sinn Fein’s Mary Lou Mcdonald and Labour’s Brendan Howlin during one Dail session, the Taoiseach said: “The level of paranoia about the SCU is really extraordinary.”