Ministers dodging media as Covid-19 strategy incoherent

CONCERN is rife in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that the ‘failure of communications’ is eroding public support for the Government strategy against coronavirus.

Ministers in both parties warned yesterday that ‘compliance is at a tipping point and the absence of a clear message is sending us into the red zone.

And the lack of a coherent stance means senior ministers are fobbing off media interviews.

Instead, they are letting junior ministers pick up the slack – but most are avoiding media calls in what has been dubbed an ‘unofficial strike’.

One minister said: ‘People are going missing when the calls come in to go on [RTÉ’s] Prime Time or Tonight on TV3. There is an unofficial strike.’

Another said: ‘The current inability to put together a coherent strategy means we are fed up of being sent out with one policy position only to be left looking like clowns when the real clowns in the Cabinet do a U-turn a day later.’

Another said: ‘Beyond my pay grade to be glared at by Matt Cooper and berated over contradicting myself on stuff that neither me nor obviously the minister knew anything about.’

And another revealed: ‘[We are not] prepared to be sacrificial lambs for the Cabinet because they are incapable of organising a strategic plan.’

Ministers also hit out at what they said was the inability of the civil service ‘to provide basic information for the Government let alone the opposition’.

One source said: ‘It is taking three days to get basic information on issues such as quarantining. That’s no good to me if Matt Cooper is going to be glaring at me in an hour.

‘They are unable to tell us about coronavirus rules and regulations. It stems from the top. There are too many chiefs and not enough Indians.’

Unease is also growing over a series of spats between the various key media advisers around the Government message to tackle the pandemic.

One source said: ‘[There is] no maestro or perhaps more accurately an enforcer. Politicians need a rule of terror if they are to behave. There is a total absence of discipline. The spin-doctors are going to war with each other with sarky little tweets.’

He added that the Government needed ‘a Mandy Johnston [former adviser to Bertie Ahern] to put manners on the dissenting voices.’