Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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131. To ask the Taoiseach the due diligence that took place in his Department before the strategic communications unit was set up; and the number of meetings that were held with the Department of Finance. [46664/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Communication to our citizens is an essential public service: the public has a right to know what their government is doing on their behalf, and why. That is why communications should be treated as a strategic, whole-of-government activity which should be conducted to the same level of professionalism as any other activity, such as human resource management or financial management.

Following due consideration and discussion, the Cabinet decided that a Strategic Communications Unit should be established in the Department of the Taoiseach.

Based on international best practice, and with the citizen at the centre of its work, the focus of this Unit is to simplify Government communications and to increase efficiencies across the public sector when dealing with the Irish public.

The Strategic Communications Unit has been integrated within the Civil Service structures in my Department, with the Director of the Unit reporting to the Secretary General of the Department.

The Civil Service Management Board (CSMB) has established a sub group of the CSMB which acts as a high-level working group to ensure successful oversight and delivery of the workplan of the unit, and is chaired by the Secretary General to the Government.

As an initial step, my Department conducted some research on existing communications activities, including the range of campaigns, brands and channels of communication used by different agencies, and which have built up over many years, under successive governments. This research is ongoing. The results of that research will be used by civil service management to help frame the work plan for the new unit.

My Department engaged with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform on funding for the unit as part of the Estimates process - a process which saw my Department's funding decrease in 2018.