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

Hear me out, please. It is also in terms of the person's former capacity as an adviser, when I was Minister for Health and Children. There is also a unit within the Department that has been dealing specifically with Covid, even before I came into the office, and it is being dealt with at a very high level within the Department. Obviously, NPHET provides public health advice to me and to the Government at large. In addition, various advices can be ascertained from key people out there in academia, without having to hire people specifically in regard to that issue. As for communications and the work of advisers, that is FOI-able, and it has to be transparent and open in regard to all the work they do, which is important.

In response to Deputy Paul Murphy, I do not think it is fair to personalise this to the degree that he has in regard to an individual who is not in the House to defend himself. I can assure the Deputy that this is not about spinning anything; it is about briefing properly on what is happening in terms of Government policy and Government initiatives. That is the issue here in terms of the capacity and the competence of the person to be the communications and press secretary for the Government.

On Deputy Boyd Barrett's point, it does not take two minutes to check out a speech that he gave in 2016. The bottom line-----

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