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

I have made clear from the outset that the strategic communications unit was a bad idea and wrong. Wittingly or unwittingly, the SCU involved the politicisation of the public service. Advertorials featuring Fine Gael Party candidates appeared in newspapers. While we do not seem to understand how that happened, it is a fact. Taxpayers' money should not be used to pay for such advertorials. The nature of many of them was promotion rather than providing information. The purpose of expensive advertisements placed at bus stops and in newspapers was promotion and in some respects propaganda, rather than providing citizens with information, as one would normally understand that function of government.

I welcome the amount of information provided in the report of the Secretary General in which he recommended the winding up of Taoiseach's pet project, the strategic communications unit. However, I encourage more people to read the detail of the report as it is in stark contrast with many of the comments and claims the Taoiseach made about the unit. From the beginning, we were informed the SCU would be established in line with worldwide best practice. The sole business case made was that the unit was best practice. Documents show, however, that only two countries were reviewed and independent information or opinion was not sought on whether such a unit should be established or what it should do. The reason was that this was the Taoiseach's idea and he proceeded to appointed the head person. Incredibly, the two countries reviewed both indicated that the agenda for such a unit should be set by the public rather than politicians and should emerge from public consultation rather than being set to fit political parties.

The Taoiseach stated originally that the objective of the research was to inform the work of the strategic communications unit. However, that work proceeded and €2.5 million was spent before any research was carried out. Will the Taoiseach explain how €2.5 million was contracted, with millions more planned, without any public consultation on the agenda?

The Taoiseach also informed the House that €178 million was being spent in a fragmented manner on advertising and needed to be rationalised. As we learned from the report, two Departments account for 60% of this expenditure, namely, the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport and Agriculture, Food and the Marine. The bulk of this was spent by independent agencies such as Fáilte Ireland and Bord Bia. The Taoiseach emphasised in the House that it was never intended that the unit would oversee the advertising budgets of these two Departments, although none of this was said in the aggressive, not-an-inch defence of the unit we heard for weeks and months. Would it not have been reasonable to supply this information before contracting millions of euro in new advertising? Will the research proceed?

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