COMMENT: Another Minister in Tipperary and no media, what are they afraid of?

Accessibility and transparency should be the cornerstone of any Government.

Giving an honest appraisal of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil at the moment on the above attributes, they might be the worst in class! 

We recently had An Taoiseach, Simon Harris, visit to open a constituency office in Clonmel for General Election candidate Cllr Michael Murphy. Minister for Justice Helen McEntee was also down for the trip to Tipp. 

But The Nationalist and Tipperary Star were not made aware of the Taoiseach's visit, nor Helen McEntee's.

So, we didn't really cover the marking, and didn't get to doorstep the leader of the country or Justice Minister on important local issues.

Alas, a missed opportunity and a "not intentional" one, but now Fianna Fáil are at it! 

The party’s  wunderkind and Finance Minister Jack Chambers was in Tipperary last Friday, but the first the media heard about his visit that made it clear he was in the Premier County was through a press release at 3.15pm on Friday afternoon announcing new jobs at Trifol Resources in Lanespark, county Tipperary.

Trifol did issue a press release on Friday morning, but it wasn't clear the Minister was coming to the site. 

Tipperary TD Jackie Cahill's press release later in the afternoon stated: "Deputy Cahill and his party colleague, Minister for Finance, Jack Chambers TD, visited the state of the art facility on Friday afternoon."

The full extent of his visit was then made known on social media after the Minister had long gone back up the motorway.

Turns out, it wasn't a flying visit. 

There was even time for the below video, posted on Sunday at 10am:

Then Deputy Cahill, on Wednesday of this week, posted: "Great night in Revel at the Ragg on Friday night to mark Seamus Hanafin's retirement from Tipperary County Council.

"Fianna Fáil Finance Minister Jack Chambers attended on the night to acknowledge Seamus' distinguished career as a public representative in Thurles."

The Tipperary TD certainly got a lot of social media content out of the Minister's visit, maybe that's the Government parties' strategy, "control the content". 

Sounds like a great few events the wunderkind attended anyway, pity there were no media present at a single one! 

Fianna Fáil supporter Paudie Taylor also posted on social media at 8.50pm on Friday night and added: "Delighted to welcome Minister for Finance Jack Chambers to Cashel (last Friday)."

So, another Minister in Tipperary and no media present. What are they afraid of?

We should have been made aware of Minister Chamber's visit well in advance so we could get reporters to cover the events he was attending. All they had to do was drop us an email, news@nationalist.ie or news@tipperarystar.ie

The late Queen Elizabeth gave the media more access during her Royal Visit in 2011. 

Instead, a local Government TD gave us a tokenistic press release about a jobs announcement the local Government TD or party councillors in Tipperary, and even Minister Chambers, would likely have had nothing to do with.

Although, they will point to the fact that the company received capital support from the EU LIFE Programme and the Irish Government’s Climate Action Fund.

So, maybe Eamon Ryan should have been the one taking all the credit, maybe he might have let us doorstep him? 

It's not a good look for the Government parties in Tipperary to be ushering senior Government figures in and surrounding them with servile acolytes and then ushering them out again without the local radio or print media getting a chance to speak to them. 

The public at the very least deserve to have the local media present to ask the important questions for them, so that the media and the public do not have to swallow and regurgitate the humdrum of Government press releases. 

Come on lads, stop hiding!