Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

One of the controversies of note in recent months has been the operation of the strategic communications unit in the Taoiseach's Department, as Deputy O'Sullivan has just noted.

It was noticeable that the Department chose last Friday evening to release a number of documents under freedom of information that had been requested by many journalists for several weeks. Was it entirely coincidental that they were released on the day of the referendum? Was Friday chosen as the release date for these documents because of the inevitable distraction of the media focus on the referendum? Is it the case that the spin unit might be gone, but the spin is continuing?

The documents that were released show that a so-called sentiment analysis was carried out by PHD Media to ascertain the perceptions of those who interacted with online advertisements about Project Ireland 2040. It appears that PHD Media planned to track online users who engaged with Project Ireland 2040 content so that they could be targeted for future campaigns. It was also planned to use the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste in future advertisements. Surely the Taoiseach will accept that this blatant politicisation of Government communications flies in the face of his previous remarks on this issue. We are glad that the strategic communications unit has been scrapped, but there are still questions to be answered. Does the Taoiseach accept that the strategic communications unit was a political operation? Does he accept that it was an inappropriate vehicle for him and his Ministers to influence the media and, by virtue of that, the citizens of the State?

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