Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together.

On 1 March, I requested that the Secretary General of my Department conduct a review into the operations of the strategic communications unit, SCU. The report from this review was accepted by the Government on 27 March and published on the same date.

The report finds that there is significant benefit to be realised by implementing the communications reform programme which had been led by the SCU. Furthermore, rapid progress had been made by the SCU in implementing its Government-approved work programme and it has played a very important role in improving cross-Government communications. In regard to Project Ireland 2040, the report finds no evidence of a breach of the Civil Service code by civil servants in the SCU, whether by seeking favourable coverage for Fine Gael candidates or otherwise.

However, the report also notes that dealing with the intense political and media interest in the work of the SCU had come to dominate much of the time of the staff of the unit and of senior management. By way of illustration, the SCU had, at the time of the review, been the subject of 203 parliamentary questions and 63 freedom of information requests, as well as a number of other debates, Leaders' Questions in the Dáil and a large number of press queries. This intense focus had been impacting my Department’s ability to focus on its everyday work and strategic priorities. This situation was not sustainable for my Department if it was to discharge its core functions.

In light of the aforementioned considerations, the Secretary General of my Department has made the following recommendations, which will be implemented over the coming months: that the SCU should be wound down; that the Department should revert to a reformed Government Information Service model, with a smaller budget, fewer staff and a more limited role than the SCU; that measures should be put in place across Departments which preserve the valuable and necessary reforms to ensure value for money, professionalisation and modernisation in Government communications activity; that there will not be any new national campaigns run by the SCU, with GIS continuing to have a co-ordinating and supporting role for national cross-Government communications, as has always been the case, but with such campaigns led and funded by the relevant line Department, if there is one; that international communications such as Global Ireland, the Security Council campaign, or the diaspora will be led by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; that the future communication of Project Ireland 2040 will be the responsibility of the new Project Ireland 2040 delivery board, which will be led by the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform and Housing, Planning and Local Government; that a number of aspects of the communications programme, such as the single Government identity programme, the migration to one single web portal, gov.ie, the capacity-building work for staff and the research survey will continue to be implemented; and that there will be a managed reversion to the more traditional GIS model, with a transition period until July 2018.

This transition is now underway and will conclude on schedule. The reassignment of staff is being dealt with as a confidential HR matter by the management of the Department in consultation with each individual staff member. As outlined in the review, surplus staff will be given the opportunity to be reassigned to another post either within my Department or in other Departments or agencies. In some cases, the duties of staff will not change as they either predated the establishment of the SCU or their work will continue in a reformed GIS. There will be no redundancies arising from the implementation of the recommendations of the review.

The 2018 funding allocation for the unit has been reduced from €5 million to €2.5 million to reflect the fact that the mandate ends in July. The result will be that my Department's Estimate in total will be 9% less than it was in 2017.

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