This Government has a pernicious disease called FiannaProgitis

WHAT kind of madness is this? €100 million a year on spin? €2 million a week?

If it is really true, as one of Sunday's newspapers headlined, that the Government is spending that much money a year on public relations, surely they've lost the run of themselves entirely. I know there was a bit of exaggeration in the story. Some of that money goes into public information and awareness campaigns how to stop smoking, how to use an e-voting machine, that sort of thing. And some of it is used to buy in expertise that doesn't need to be retained on a permanent basis.

But every year the amount of public money spent in this way goes up exponentially. And every year more and more of it is spent on nothing but the manufacture and protection of the public image of the Government and its leading personalities.