This will not restore trust in flawed unit
THE institutions of government and democracy are not impervious to the demands of a digital age. Hence, they must have an online presence to function effectively. That is why, in theory at least, the Government’s Strategic Communications Unit was a good idea.
In streamlining communication between departments, the unit would enhance the efficiency of what is, by any measure, a ramshackle system. However, the manner in which it sought to improve internal and external communications was a disaster. So, too, was its ambition to render us, the Irish public, appreciative of the policy triumphs of the ‘Government of Ireland’.
It is not as though the Government and civil service were groping in the dark. In 2012, the Canadian government sought to streamline its departments under a single ‘digital service’. The move was hugely expensive and, ultimately, unmanageable. Last year, the Canadians accepted that it could not work and dropped the plan.
Yet, few will doubt the need to improve communication between the Government and the public. If the unit had not undermined the basic tenets of trust and integrity that underpin journalism, it would not be mired in the current controversy. Indeed, the problem is not the unit itself but the abject way it was exploited by those who should know better.
As if to compound the problem, Leo Varadkar has instructed the country’s ‘leading civil servant’ Martin Fraser, to carry out an inquiry into the debacle. Mr Fraser is secretary general at the Department of the Taoiseach. We also know that he met unit chief John Concannon 22 times. How then can such an inquiry hope to restore public trust and confidence in the unit?
Mr Varadkar is now mooting the unit’s closure. To his mind, what was once a good idea has suddenly become a bad idea. The real problem, however, is that the unit was used by a spin-obsessed Taoiseach to peddle Government propaganda.
The solution is not less but more communication and transparency. That is why the Government should learn from its mistakes and stop politicising the unit.
The Canadian example proves why streamlining government communication will be difficult. But better that than a situation in which trust and truth are compromised by a culture of spin.