Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Frankly, I do not understand why the Taoiseach needs this strategic communications unit for any purpose other than political propaganda. He has the Government Information Service. Why does he need this? How will he prevent the blurring of the lines in terms of the Taoiseach just getting out a political message that is convenient for him as against information? We have Ministers who are responsible for different Departments. They are supposed to answer questions. They make announcements about what they do. Why does the Taoiseach need another highly staffed, costly, so-called strategic communications unit? Where are the lines drawn between information the public objectively needs to know about what the Government is doing and the Taoiseach just putting out spin that suits him? For example, most people's perception of what happened over the past few days is that the Taoiseach had information which the public would have wished to have known about the extent of knowledge of the former Minister for Justice and Equality and within the Department of Justice and Equality about a hotly debated issue regarding the treatment of a whistleblower. As soon as that information comes into the Taoiseach's possession, is it the job of the strategic communications unit to get that information out and inform the public or is it something the Taoiseach does when it suits him, as turned out to be the case, or when the media leak certain information the Taoiseach then puts a spin on it? I do not understand where the information begins and the spin ends for this communications unit. Certainly, I believe, and it is the public perception, that this is just a spin unit, and a highly resourced and expensive one at that.

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