Eoghan Murphy: There were crazier ideas than fake online accounts

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy has said the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his team thought of worse things than setting up fake Facebook accounts during his leadership campaign.

Mr Murphy was Mr Varadkar’s campaign director and was asked at the Fine Gael think-in about the revelations that the Taoiseach suggested setting up the fake accounts to write positively about him.

Mr Murphy said the suggestion was “whimsical” and one which emerged during a brain storming session.

I saw something about that, I haven’t seen the full story. I dont think there is much to it. It sounds like the kind of whimsical remark someone might make when you are kicking around more hairbrained ideas over a coffee. Let me tell you, there were more crazy ones than that going around.

A new book on the Fine Gael leader, Leo – A Very Modern Taoiseach, describes how he once proposed setting up fake social media accounts to take part in online discussions.

Asked what were the crazier ideas, the response was: “They will be in the sequel”.

Mr Varadkar admitted the idea of using anonymous online profiles to praise Fine Gael’s work was floated, but said it was never seriously considered.

He said: “I think the term used in the book is ‘floated’. There was never any serious discussion about it. There was never a meeting about it or an agenda item. I don’t even have a particular reflection on it but obviously some TD does.

Pressed on whether he felt it was an appropriate campaign mechanism, he said: “It wasn’t done, it wasn’t seriously considered.”

The book, written by Philip Ryan and Niall O’Connor, details how Mr Varadkar brought a team together to make his bid to succeed former Enda Kenny as Fine Gael leader. It describes how the campaign’s social media strategy was devised.

The book says: “At one point, Varadkar floated the idea to one TD of creating anonymous accounts to make positive comments under online stories on popular news websites. It’s unclear how far the proposal was pushed.”

Also speaking at the same party gathering in Galway, Health Minister Simon Harris responded to the parents of children with scoliosis who complained about the length of time they have had to wait for treatment.

Mr Harris said any person waiting for an operation is an upsetting sitation. “Any child is particularly upsetting. I cannot comment on individual cases. Clinicians have to be able to decide if children should remain on a suspended list and not deemed appropriate for an active list,” he said. “We are making significant progress, the number of children waiting for scoliosis operation is significantly down and the length of time is also down. The Government’s job is to ensure we fund the health service properly. This is an area where we are making huge progress.”

The parents appealed to Mr Harris, who in 2017 told the joint committee on health that no patient would wait more than four months for scoliosis surgery, to take action.

Sophia Daly, 12, from Dunleer, Co Louth, was diagnosed with scoliosis in 2013 and despite dropping in weight to 10kg she was forced to wait until 2015 for her operation. Her father Aaron Daly spoke on RTÉ Radio about the delays his family have been faced with while trying to secure a second spinal operation for Sophia.