Cassells’ new role to improve party communications

Meath's Senator Shane Cassells will head up a new committee set up by Taoiseach, Micheal Martin as part of an overhaul of the Fianna Fáil party.

The Navan native will lead the new communications committee in a move which follows on from an internal Fianna Fáil report carried out in the wake of the 2020 general election which blamed a lack of a clear identity for the party's poor performance.

"This was recommended in the Fleming Report which followed on from the general election and local and European election results," Senator Cassells, who lost his Dail seat in the 2020 election explained.

"The Taoiseach asked me to chair the committee. In terms of my own background, the methods of communication and how people access news have changed massively in the past 20 years, but the basic principle of speaking to people has never changed," he said.

“We have to get out the message about what Fianna Fáil is doing and what work is being done.

"There is no point in doing a lot of good work and people not knowing about it. My job will be to let people know about it.

"Coming from a newspaper background, the days are gone, when you just issue a press release - my 12 year old daughter can tell me what is going on because of TikTok. We need to be across all platforms."

Senator Cassells said that the report of the Future of the Media Commission, which was set up by the Government in 2020 should be published as soon as possible.

Siobhán Russell, who is Fianna Fail's head of communications, has also been selected to sit on the committee and other members of the committee are TDs James O’Connor and James Lawless as well as senators Mary Fitzpatrick, Malcolm Byrne, Fiona O’Loughlin and Eugene Murphy.

Mr Martin said: “Fianna Fáil is performing very strongly in Government and is a key force for positive change in communities in every corner of the country.

"Our challenge is to ensure that this message reaches as wide an audience as possible among the public and that our whole organisation is empowered to tell that story.

"This new committee will play an important role in advancing our strategy and developing capacity, and I look forward to working with them.”