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TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has spent much of the morning engaged with members of the Communications Unit trying to weigh up whether snapping a selfie with music sensation Ed Sheeran as his tour of the country continues would do enough to distract from the CervicalCheck scandal.

“Well, it would fly around Twitter, and sure you’d have a few people angry, but then the tweet would be screengrabbed with young people saying stuff like ‘oh my God this is why I love Ireland, Taoiseach with Ed, class’,” said one spin unit member, while pointing to a white board listing of possible selfie poses.

The idea of attending one of Sheeran’s remaining Irish gigs, and just snapping a picture of the Taoiseach in the crowd, was abandoned after it was deemed too easy for people to imply the Taoiseach wasn’t hard at work, with its ability to take the heat off the CervicalCheck scandal questioned.

“But if we get you and Ed in the one snap, maybe Ed shares it too on his official accounts, and we’re talking wall to wall coverage on Joe, Her, the Indo, the Journal, RTÉ, the radio shows cover it,” one spin unit member enthused before flipping the white board over to reveal yet more possible outcomes.

“Then these same publications would double down on the photo and produce lists of ’10 times Irish politicians rocked out at concerts’ and they’ll use that picture of Enda at Bruce Springsteen and next to that you’ll look so modern, so urbane, so young, the fact the CervicalCheck scandal is a complete disaster and a damning indictment of Irish politicians and institutions won’t be news for at least 24 hours”.

The spin unit then spent the next hour brainstorming Ed Sheeran songs and lyrics to use as hashtags in the possible selfies.