How and why it took six months to reveal the real story of the Strategic Communications Unit

Why would a government committed to improving communications with its citizens hold out on releasing details of how it proposed to do that for so long?

Questions raised about 'arm's length' relationship of government with SCU. Pic: Rollingnews.ie

On the 30 August last year the Sunday Business Post sought access, under Freedom of Information, to all correspondence pertaining to the establishment of the Strategic Communications Unit as well as details of the SCU’s audit of government communications.

The SCU has become mired in a political controversy in recent weeks as a result of a number of newspaper advertorials publicising the national development plan, which the opposition claim were effectively used to ...