Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I did not realise there were quite so many vacancies until I read out the reply. I imagine some are Civil Service vacancies, which will be filled in the normal way should the Secretary General determine they remain necessary. Political appointments such as that of the assistant Government press secretary simply have not been made yet and probably will not be until the autumn given that we are entering a relatively quiet period in terms of media.

The strategic communications unit will be separate. It will be a unit of the Department and not under the auspices of the Government Information Service. The Government Information Service will do what it does currently, namely, deal with the press on a regular basis, deal with protocol and deal with national commemorations. The strategic communications unit will be something new. It will try to pull together all of the communications that occur across Government. We have a lot of Departments and agencies and they are spending a great deal of taxpayers' money. They have an awful lot of staff. I do not believe an adequately coherent message is coming from Government. There is an opportunity to make savings in the total amount spent by Departments and agencies on communications and public relations and there is also an opportunity to present a much more coherent message to the public as to what the Government and its agencies are doing and what the public service is providing people with.

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