Month: February 2018

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar’s €5 million communications unit was warned of the dangers of getting caught in a “parliamentary bubble” in a special briefing from the UK government’s premiere public relations guru.

Two senior members of the Strategic Communications Unit (SCU) visited London in September for a high-level briefing with senior personnel in Britain’s Government Communication Service.

A report on the visit, obtained under FOI, reveals key parts of the advice that will shape Mr Varadkar’s controversial PR operation.

Among the findings brought back from the meeting were that there was “audacity in simplicity” and that “citizen needs are more important than government needs”.

The trip was undertaken by John Concannon, the director of the SCU, and Andrea Pappin, another of the leading officials from the unit.

A separate report from the Strategic Communications Unit warned that communications teams across government could suffer “the five stages of grief” if told they had to revamp their websites, PR and branding.

The advice came after two senior officials from the unit travelled to The Hague to meet communication experts in the Dutch government last September.

A report on the visit explained how some people would need to go through an “emotional journey” to let go of longstanding logos, branding, and internet home pages.

This is all correspondence between junior minister at the Department of Health Jim Daly and other organisations about his plan to link social media accounts to official forms of identity like passports or public services cards.

The plan has already been rejected by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar but Mr Daly does not appear to have given up on it.

The documents show that Minister Daly wrote personally to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook about his idea for an “online verification code” and subsequently received a response from the company.

Facebook said it would raise “some very difficult privacy and data protection-related issues” but were happy to meet with him. That meeting took place on February 14, but the minutes of it would not have been subject to this FOI request.

AN INTERNAL report has revealed the chaos behind trying to manage the contracts of medical consultants and ensuring they work all the hours they are supposed to in public hospitals.

The document effectively admits that for many consultants, the HSE has no way of monitoring their earnings or private practice to ensure they fulfil their obligations.

The report was prepared by the HSE for the Department of Health and the Department of Public Expenditure amid concerns that some consultants were not doing all they were supposed to do in public hospitals.

The issue was highlighted in an RTÉ Investigates documentary last November which showed how some consultants were doing far below what their contract required, particularly in regional hospitals.

In one case, a consultant observed for an eight-week period was discovered to be doing just thirteen hours a week on average in the public system.

Documents obtained under FOI reveal the consultant contract issue was already a major concern of the HSE and Department of Health prior to the programme broadcast.

A report had been prepared highlighting the “key challenges” facing the HSE in guaranteeing that consultants met their obligations.

It said that it was impossible to keep tabs on 360 consultants with a specific type of contract. “[Their contracts] posed unique challenges for this cohort as it left no effective basis for monitoring compliance,” the report explained.

Many contracts had no provision for monitoring offsite private practice generally, the report said.

“The HSE has audited hospitals in relation to this issue; however, it does not lend itself to a routine monitoring, and random checks through websites have limited benefit. There is a need to determine the most appropriate mechanism for establishing whether there is inappropriate off-site practice.”

The HSE also had no way to check how much consultants were earning from the private work they did while other problems around determining whether patients were public or private were also identified.

Another issue was also raised where some consultants were working more than required and “strict enforcement” for all could well bring those doing excess hours “into sharp focus”.