Cullen rejects 'malicious innuendo' in newspaper report

The Minister for Transport, Mr Cullen has rejected as "malicious innuendo" an impression suggested in a Sunday newspaper that his relationship with a public relations consultant was anything other than  professional.

He said the way images of himself and Ms Monica Leech, a married mother of two, had been presented in the newspaper last weekend may have led many people to that conclusion, which had no basis in fact or in truth.

Speaking on Radio One's News at One Programme today Mr Cullen defended the selection process by which Waterford-based Ms Leech was awarded a Department of Environment contract and criticised the reporting of this relationship in one newspaper.

Mr Cullen said "the spreading of malicious innuendo including the twisting of facts to suit salacious pursuit of big headlines" was "reprehensible".

He described as "entirely inappropriate and morally wrong" the invasion of privacy of his family, which, he said included the "uninvited" entering of the home of his wife and children. Mr Cullen is separated from his wife.

He stressed he was taking issue with the actions of just one reporter whose actions he described as "reprehensible. . . All of this has no basis in fact or in truth."

Detailing the manner in which Ms Leech was awarded the contract Mr Cullen said an initial interim contract was awarded to Ms Leech on his recommendation in July 2002 to deal with a number of projects, such as the National Spatial Strategy.

"I believed I needed a communications specialist at the time give the scale of challenge that was involved in the spatial strategy and I needed some one to assist me in that regard.

"The department said that was fine but it would take some months to process but it was quite okay to get a short-term tender into the department on the basis that a full tender process would be put in place." This process was put in place in November 2002 and Monica Leech Communications beat two other tenders to secure a second, longer contract.

He said the quality and professionalism of the work produced by Monica Leech Communications had been recognised by a series of industry awards.

Mr Cullen denied the  €1,200-a-day remuneration package which resulted in fees of over €300,000 for the company was excessive saying that he understood charges for Dublin based companies were much higher.

"These are the charges. Some of the others as I understand it in Dublin charge a lot more than that. These are the costs that are charged to  Government".

Asked why he had recommended Ms Leech initially, Mr Cullen said he was aware of her work in Waterford and had worked with the company before. He added that she had also successfully completed a number of contracts for the Office of Public Works.

Mr Cullen said he was familiar with the communications abilities of the company and wanted to get someone he could have confidence in from the Government's point of view.