Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for taking the time and I congratulate my colleague, Deputy Lawless, for his Private Members' Bill. It is very useful. The Government should accept it and use pre-legislative scrutiny and Committee Stage to improve it if it feels there are anomalies in the Bill. Deputy Lawless has outlined the many positives in the Bill.

I will focus on the strategic spin unit. Given the brilliance of John Concannon, in the same way that buildings throughout the world are lit up with green, will we now have buildings throughout Ireland lit up in blue in honour of Leo the Vain? At the Committee of Public Accounts last week, I had the opportunity to question the Secretary General about a number of issues, one of which was the fantastic ad for invalidity pension. It is very informative, just like the ones that were around for years from the Road Safety Authority, the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Justice and Equality and so on, except at the end of this ad there is a lovely footer saying it is a Government of Ireland initiative. Clearly somebody somewhere is trying to take the people of Ireland for fools. This is a cheap abuse of public funds to create a false complexion of political, Fine Gael, Leo Varadkar ownership and creation of the people's entitlements. It is wrong and dishonest and it impairs the integrity of the Government. I am very surprised the Minister, as an Independent member of Government, stood over a €5 million wastage. What would €5 million have done for the A&E in Roscommon hospital, for example? How many home care packages could it have given to the people of Roscommon and east Galway? How many more blue light ambulance cover hours could we have in the Minister's county? This is about the "me, me, me" approach. It is the "Enough about me; what do you think of me?" approach of the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, who is now wasting €5 million in public funds to make himself look better. He is tweeting and recording from the Government jet and from the office every morning. My colleague, Deputy Thomas Byrne, submitted a parliamentary question asking who is paying for the Facebook boosts on the little messages coming out of the office on Merrion Street. All of a sudden they stopped for a while. Perhaps the way the account is funded has changed. This €5 million is being used to create dishonestly a complexion of political ownership of citizens' entitlements. It is Mugabe-esque; one could choose another name - Chavez, Pinochet or Goebbels - but that is what it amounts to. It is the worst possible kind of propaganda. As an independent and very honourable member of the Government, I expected better of the Minister and thought he would hold this man to account for the abuse of public funds in this way.

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