‘Time to scrap Leo’s spin unit’

A MOTION proposing the abolition of the Government’s Strategic Communications Unit could be tabled in the Dáil this week amid continuing controversy over its alleged promotion of Fine Gael with taxpayer cash. The expected move comes after the release under the Freedom of Information Act of emails from last year when the establishment of the unit was being discussed.

At the time, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was warned that it could be seen as a ‘vanity project’ by his own chief of staff, Brian Murphy.

The emails, published in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post, also show Government departments and State agencies spent up to €180million on a variety of campaigns in 2016. Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin dismissed a review of the SCU announced by the Taoiseach last week as ‘a farce’.

‘The SCU needs to be disbanded. Leo Varadkar needs to step up to the plate and admit he got this wrong,’ he said. ‘It has been a wholly inappropriate misuse of public money. This unit needs to be stood down. It needs to be abolished.

‘We will have a meeting this week and we may put down a motion to that effect.’

Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin also called for the unit’s disbandment, saying the Taoiseach was ‘set on self-advancement and self-promotion’.

Meanwhile, the Public Accounts Committee and the Oireachtas’s Communication Committee could both take a look at the unit, with the latter already inviting witnesses to attend, including Mediaforce, an agency used to commission promotional material from newspapers.

Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O’Brien said: ‘This is the first Taoiseach who has set up his own marketing department less than two months after he took office. Look how the Taoiseach responded to the controversy – the first thing he did was to attack the journalism.’

Mr O’Brien also accused the Government of ‘trying to use media with taxpayers’ money to promote a Fine Gael agenda’.

Meanwhile, Séamus Dooley of the National Union of Journalists said: ‘There is huge unease at this. This is the politics of nod and wink.’

However, a spokesman for the Taoiseach said: ‘The SCU was set up to better inform citizens of the services offered by the Government and State agencies. Anyone suggesting that the Government should stop providing better information to citizens is not thinking about the citizens.’

‘Promoting a Fine Gael agenda’