Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday's conversation on the marketing unit was helpful because it allowed time to fact-check some of the Government's statements. Approximately €340,000 was the amount spent on the launch of the 2007 plan. I checked a parliamentary question tabled at the time by Ruairí Quinn. This does not compare with the amount spent on Friday's launch, which was by far the most expensive and extensive ever by a Government.

In the context of the relationship with the media and the matter of the unit's political activity, the national development plan was formally adopted by the Government last Friday but sectoral groups were fully briefed on Thursday. When it was announced, Fine Gael put up a new website with enormous detail of the plan, including exact wording and a county-by-county list of promises not published by the Government. This can only have come from direct political engagement with the unit. How does that fit with the Civil Service code?

On the media content partnership, the Taoiseach must accept that there is something ethically dubious at the very least about one arm of the his Department seeking coverage for so-called exclusives about the plan while another is discussing major advertising spending with the same media outlets. The Taoiseach has said he wanted to get the media to run fewer negative stories. If we look at pages 24 and 25 of the Irish Independent- the position is the same in the The Irish Times- we can see articles marked as being in partnership with the Government. They are presented as articles but should we take it that they are actually advertisements? I have no issue with the Government advertising services in the media but these are political advertisements. They are articles placing the Government in a good light in terms of these issues. Every regional newspaper will have the biggest advertisement it has received in many years, block booked well in advance. This is saturation of good news stories presented in that manner by the media. There is an issue in terms of the health of our democracy and the ethical nature of the engagement of the Taoiseach and the Department in all of this. The blurring of the lines is genuinely very worrying from the point of view of parliamentary democracy. The Taoiseach will say that he is promoting the Government, but the dogs in the street know he is using taxpayers' money to promote Fine Gael politically. That is the end of the story.

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