MATERNITY HOSPITALS SPEND €580 K ...ON SPIN!
THREE of the country’s major maternity hospitals have splashed out over €580,000 on PR and spin, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.
The National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street, the Coombe and the Rotunda – all voluntary hospitals that largely depend on taxpayer funds to stay open – spent the money on communications consultants and PR firms in recent years.
Holles Street, the Master of which is Dr Rhona Mahony, splurged €149,299, including VAT, on PR and
spin over the six-and-a-halfyear period from January 2011 until July of this year, data released to the Mail under the Freedom of Information Act shows.
The annual spend peaked at almost €60,000 in 2013.
The hospital used wellknown firm Murray Consultants, which has a client list that includes the controversial utility Irish Water.
In 2011 Holles Street spent €5,766 on these services, but that more than tripled the following year when the bill came to almost €18,000.
In 2013 it peaked at €59,834 and in 2014 the costs came to €16,909.
This spend dropped to just €4,805 in 2015 but rose again to a hefty €43,524 in 2016.
During the first seven months of this year, the spend was just €578, according to the hospital.
The hospital said that it engaged the use of ‘external public relations services to deal with the very large volume of media queries it receives on a very wide range of matters’ and that it currently has no ‘internal communications,
‘Large volume of media queries’
media or public relations staff’.
The Coombe, overseen by Master Dr Sharon Sheehan, had the highest spend out of all three, with bills amounting to €275,233.88, since 2010.
The hospital confirmed that FTI Consulting is the only firm engaged by it. It added that it does have one internal staff member who also deals with these type of queries, despite the hefty external spend.
The hospital said it has ‘one whole-time equivalent, at a Grade 7 level, who, as part of the role, acts in a liaison capacity with the HSE, external organisations including PR firms, and the general public in relation to requests for information’.
From 2010 to 2016, its spending worked out at an average of €35,843 a year, ranging from just over €25,500 in 2015 to just over €41,000 last year.
In the first eight months of this year, its spending on public relations amounted to €24,331.86.
The Rotunda, the Master of which is Professor Fergal Malone, confirmed that it had spent almost €160,000 on spin and public relations professionals over almost six years.
For the years 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016 and from January until September of this year, the hospital had a hefty spend of €159,274.
In 2010 the bills came to €4,126. However, it was almost six times that amount the following year, at €28,233. The hospital said it had no bills for these services in 2012 and 2014.
In 2013 the bill was €20,249, while in 2015 it was €34,904.
The following year, the hospital had two hefty payments to two companies.
Strand Telecommunications, which had been engaged since 2010, received €21,960.
Heneghan PR – the sole company to be engaged by the hospital after Strand – had a bill for €26,860 last year.
The hospital said there were two payments last year because it had ‘issued a tender for PR services’ that year. It added: ‘In that year, Strand provided PR/media consultancy services up until the appointment of this successful tenderer, Heneghan PR.’
From January to September this year, there was just shy of €23,000 spent on these services offered by Heneghan PR.
The data released by the hospital also detailed: ‘The Rotunda Hospital has used the services of public-relations firms for a variety of projects or issues that required consultation. These included media queries, training, branding solutions, etc.’ It added: ‘The Rotunda Hospital’s human resources department has confirmed that there were no internal communications, media or public-relations staff employed for the relevant years.’
The total spend by the three maternity hospitals on PR and communications was almost €584,000.
Comment – Page 14 emmajane.hade@dailymail.ie
‘A variety of projects’