Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I fully appreciate and understand the need for political parties and politicians to communicate effectively with the public. Political communication is an important part of the functioning of democracy and is correctly prioritised by many of us working in politics. That should not be questioned. However, there should be a significant difference between what constitutes political communication and propaganda. This is particularly important for the governing party. A balance must be struck between self-promotion and party advertising and a Government's role providing responsible and accurate information to citizens.

I should have said that I am sharing time with Deputy Ryan.

The balance has been tilted and in doing so, irreparable damage has been done and continues to be done to citizens' trust in the political process in this country. The general sense of spin replacing substance has been amplified and most people one talks to will take some of the Government campaigns with a pinch of salt so it is defeating the purpose and undermining politics. Many people felt rightly aggrieved that they had read things in their local papers and assumed they were reading a local news story only to find out, thanks to the work of Ellen Coyne in The Times, Ireland edition, that they were subject to advertisements dressed up as news. This sort of underhand falsification of politics does nothing but further entrench the belief that the political system is not to be trusted. The way in which the Civil Service has effectively been politicised through the strategic communication unit is yet another serious blow to the trust placed in political and public institutions. When a senior civil servant in the Department of the Taoiseach raises concerns about political impartiality in the strategic communications unit, then surely it should be enough to force a change. Instead there continues to be a blurring of the lines between the Civil Service and the governing party and this fundamentally impacts on the basis of democracy.

There is stage-managed spin, designed to hide the shocking homelessness statistics, and there have been revelations about the unit's agenda to generate good news at regional level. Ironically, it has even ignored some things from the national development plan. For example, the DART underground is missing completely but we only have to look at this city to see that the surface capacity cannot deal with it. Such things have been left behind in the rush to regional good news. I wholeheartedly support a call for senior officials within the strategic communications unit to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts and I actually sought this. The official who made the business case to the Accounting Officer in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is required to appear in front of us to explain the budgeting process and I hope it will happen quite quickly.

Notwithstanding all the budgetary, ethical and political considerations, when assessing whether the strategic communications unit should be scrapped I suggest the Taoiseach takes a look at the number of high-profile gaffes by himself, and senior Ministers lately, and asks himself if he is getting value for money. We will support this motion and it should be respected when the vote is called on Thursday.

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