Power grab by Leo’s €5m spin unit
Conf idential brief ing note reveals how new Strategic Communications Unit will get more staff, and more power, as Martin hits out at ‘Orwellian doublespeak’
LEO VARADKAR was under increasing pressure last night as alarm grows over contradictory pronouncements made about his new taxpayer-funded ‘spin unit’.
Confidential documents, released under Freedom of Information rules, reveal a litany of confused messages about the Strategic Communications Unit, which was claimed to be cost neutral but was controversially allocated €5m in this week’s Budget.
While the unit is supposed to keep citizens informed, opposition TDs claim it is, in reality, a political propaganda vehicle. Those suspicions will only deepen after the MoS today reveals how the Taoiseach avoided TDs’ queries about two of the unit’s members who consulted the British Conservative party.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin added to Mr Varadkar’s pressure last night by accusing him of ‘doublespeak’ over the costly information body.
Mr Martin told the MoS last night that Mr Varadkar was on the ‘cusp of politicising the civil service’. He said: ‘The Taoiseach’s explanations about his Strategic Communications Unit just don’t add up – his doublespeak and obfuscations are actually Orwellian. He says it’s a unit that is going to be part of the civil service but he selected and appointed the two top people in the unit himself. He said it would be cost neutral and it’s now going to cost €5m. He said it would have two staff, it now has six and rising.
‘Some time, sooner rather than later, the Taoiseach needs to come clean about what is essentially a party political unit within Government Buildings.’
Mr Martin has also written a letter to the Government’s top civil servant, the Department of the Taoiseach’s Secretary General, asking for clarity over the origins, staffing and costs of the unit which has been labelled a ‘political propaganda unit’. The MoS can reveal the following:
Despite what the Taoiseach said in July, when he announced the initiative, the SCU will completely replace the Government Information Service, the unit within the civil service that currently handles media queries and promotes Government initiatives. However, this was only announced in a lowprofile written Dáil Question.
Mr Varadkar specifically dodged questions in the Dáil about two members of the new communications who went to Britain to consult the Conservative party, despite having answers prepared, in case he was asked.
The controversial unit will have more than the six staff mentioned in the Dáil this week by the Taoiseach, with three from Government information website merrionstreet.ie set to merge with the unit presently. A second-in-command role was also being advertised internally in the public sector this week.
The SCU’s first project was Budget 2018 – and the ‘common Government identity’ that Mr Varadkar mentioned in the Dáil has already been created and was piloted during this week’s Budget media conferences.
We also reveal the names and grades of the confirmed six seconded civil servants attached to the SCU.
When first questioned about it, before the Dáil rose for the summer recess, Mr Varadkar said the unit would ‘not replace’ the current press arrangements and would ‘operate independently’ of the Government Information Service. But in his confidential notes, Mr Varadkar was briefed to explain – as of September 20 – that the ‘former GIS function’ will in fact be integrated into the new SCU.
This means that the figure of six staff in the SCU, which Mr Varadkar reiterated this week under pressure in the Dáil, is in fact at least nine.
GIS spokesman Stephen Higgins said: ‘As part of streamlining communications, the merrionstreet.ie team in the department has been incorporated into the unit. Therefore, the three media and communications assistants, recruited as part of an open competition run by the Public Appointments Service, will join the unit once they join the department in the coming weeks.’
However, the staff complement does not stop at nine. The MoS has seen an advert circulated internally in civil/public service recruitment channels this week, seeking a principal officer for the SCU. Of the six civil servants currently attached to it, one is at assistant secretary level and the others are from assistant principal officer down. This would imply that the Government is recruiting for a second-in-command for the unit.
Asked repeatedly if this was the case, Mr Higgins would only say: ‘Further vacancies will be filled through advertisement for staff on
It has been labelled a political propaganda unit
secondment from within the Civil and Public Service.’ This would bring the staff complement to at least 10. Former Government Press Secretary Feargal Purcell predicted to the MoS on September 2, that the unit may grow beyond the two people employed at that stage, but it would not go beyond five.
Meanwhile, the briefing notes reveal one focus of the SCU will be creating one common government identity. Budget 2018 was the first official campaign for the SCU, with campaigns yet to come including the Capital Plan; Brexit; National Children’s Hospital; Global Ireland; Rebuilding Ireland; ‘Winter Ready’;
and Rugby World Cup, according to the briefing notes.
This week Paschal Donohoe held his budget press conference in a newly refurbished Government briefing room, adorned with a previously unseen logo, Rialtas na hÉireann/Government of Ireland beside an official harp. Asked to confirm that this was the new ‘common government identity’, Mr Higgins said the idea for ‘unified international identity’ for Ireland was an action of the Creative Ireland Year One programme, and was one of 10 initiatives due to be implemented by the end of the year.
Creative Ireland is the agency John Concannon, now head of the SCU, was previously in charge of.
Mr Higgins said: ‘The new Rialtas na hÉireann identity is being piloted in the Government Press Centre and has featured in a number of Government videos. While costs are yet to be determined, this Government identity project is expected to deliver cost efficiencies.’
Mr Martin has sent a letter to the Secretary General of the Department of An Taoiseach.
In the letter he states: ‘At last Wednesday’s Dáil Questions the Taoiseach made a number of comments concerning the oversight, operations and cost of the unit. During this he stated that the unit reports to you and is subject to the policies which apply to established civil servants. As such, I am writing to you to seek clarification on these matters.’ He then asked a series of questions regarding the appointments of SCU members John Concannon and Andrea Pappin; whether civil service rules were followed; whether members of the unit have attended meetings of special advisers and/or party press officers; and how he will ensure the Unit does not ‘indirectly support a political message rather than the purely public information role’.