Pro-Garda PR blitz cancelled

THE Government cancelled a PR campaign about Ireland’s low crime record because of doubts about the accuracy of Garda statistics, it has emerged.

The cancellation came after the Central Statistics Office refused to accept Garda crime figures amid major concerns about their authenticity.

Leo Varadkar had championed the idea of a publicity campaign based on Ireland’s low crime rates. A week-long blitz on crime by the gardaí would go along with the campaign. This would include arresting people with outstanding ‘bench warrants’.

The biggest concern about the campaign came from the Garda’s own director of communication, Andrew McLin- don, who warned about the timing, given ‘concerns regarding focusing on the CSO crime stats, given the current issues around publication’. He warned that the PR campaign proposed by the Taoiseach could be seen by the public as a ‘propaganda campaign’.

RTÉ’s This Week programme obtained the email communications about the campaign under the Freedom of Information Act. The Department of Justice documents show that there had been discussions about using the publicity campaign as a ‘springboard’ for a crackdown on crime. The communication, in July 2017, came at a time when the CSO was making the unprecedented step of refusing to publish Garda statistics because of their unreliability.

The department said this week that it was not trying to run a campaign to overcome the CSO’s refused to accept the Garda crime figures.

Social Democrats co-leader Catherine Murphy TD yesterday described the documents as ‘jaw-dropping’ saying they show Mr Varadkar’s ‘total obsession with spin over substance’.

In a statement, the Department of Justice told RTÉ that all public bodies ‘have a responsibility to consider how the work being undertaken by those bodies can be communicated effectively to the public we serve’.