Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I listened with interest to the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform and his characterisation of my party as being somehow opposed to good news. Of course, the truth is that if there was any good news on housing, health or even some of the infrastructure projects, we would welcome it, as we have done. We have been consistently constructive in our approach. However, we will not join in the backslapping festival that seems to be heralded by the Government and we will not be silent when taxpayers' money is used to somehow promote the narrow political interests of one party. That is not acceptable. I commend Deputy Pearse Doherty for bringing forward this motion.

I also want to say a word of thanks to journalists like Ellen Coyne and Hugh O'Connell who have been derided by An Taoiseach and others in Fine Gael for simply doing their job. Their job is not to promote the Government or to continuously high five the establishment parties. Their job is to critically report the news and this is what they do and do well. They should be commended in this instance for what they have done in highlighting this issue.

Either directly or indirectly, the strategic communications unit sought to encourage and sponsor the dissemination of uncritical subjective opinion pieces as objective news, which they clearly were not. The Government knows that there is a problem. It has advised that there will be a review. There would not be a review if there was not an acknowledgement on that side of the House that there is a problem. We see reports in the media today that the review is likely to find that the strategic communications unit is doing a good job. I think Jack Horgan-Jones of The Sunday Business Postsaid this was like a student who sets and supervises their own examination announcing that they are confident of getting a high grade. There is not much faith on this side of the House in the review. We have called for the strategic communications unit to be disbanded. I do not want to pre-empt the result of the vote but in all likelihood, it will be supported by the House. The question we ask is this: will the Government support the will of the House and if this motion is passed, will it acknowledge that the strategic communications unit should be disbanded?

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