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gher the two most high profile victims. Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is in revealing the large amounts of public money the statewas spending on spin at a timeof deep recession. TomClonanpulls no punches when it comes to criticizing successive governments that were overly concerned with spin. Special advisors saw themselves as political appointments with a job to portray ministers in a positive light, often on large salaries. Clonan quite rightly says: ‘at a time of severe cutbacks in the public sector, it is morally problematic to use public funds to enhance the media profile of individual ministers’. The Fianna Fáil government of Brian Cowan is charged by journalists of cronyism and of being evasive, abrasive and authoritarian, echoing some of the traits of New Labour in Britain. Both of the last two Governments are accused of spending a disproportionate amount of public funds on special media advisors and contracts with public relations firms. Enda Kenny’s Fine Gael are revealed to spend €3.5m on spin and public relations, proportionally 10 times that of the Tories in Westminster. O’Brien and Ó’Beacháin are to be congratulated not simply on being the first to cast the spotlight on this area of Irish public life, but in producing a comprehensive, balanced and nuanced account of political communication in Ireland.