ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI IS due to jet into Dublin this weekend for a highly publicized appearance on RTE’s The Ray D’Arcy Show. News of the Mooch’s appearance was confirmed by The Sunday Times last month. Speaking to that newspaper, Scaramucci stated that he had a ‘fan club’ in Ireland and that he was ‘coming to have fun with you people’.

For those of you who may not remember, Anthony Scaramucci was appointed White House Communications Director last July only to be fired after just ten days in the post. He is most notable for having made a phone call to The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza in which he uttered the immortal line, “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own c**k.” It was a spectacular fall from grace.

These days, he’s busy making television appearances and sharing weird memes about the concept of ‘truth’ on Twitter.

Which begs the question: why is The Ray D’Arcy Show flying Anthony Scaramucci into town eight months after he was fired? Press materials have promised that Scaramucci will “share his insight on the revolving door of staff in the 45th president’s administration, and tell viewers what Donald Trump is really like to work with.” (Scaramucci is not going to spill the tea on what Donald Trump is “really like” to Ray D’Arcy of all people, but okay.)

Scaramucci is the third Trump-adjacent character to appear on RTE in recent months. Last November, Ivana Trump appeared on The Ray D’Arcy Show, while former press secretary Sean Spicer was on The Late Late Show in January.

Those two interviews yielded little in terms of genuine insights about President Donald Trump. They were little more than handy jollies for Sean Spicer and Ivana Trump, two people who gravitate to the limelight like moths to a flame. (Who can forget Sean Spicer’s dreadful cameo at the Emmys last year?)

Spicer, Scaramucci and, to a lesser extent, Ivana Trump are associated with an administration that many people in this country find repellent. Indeed both Spicer and Scaramucci behaved poorly during their disastrous tenures and haven’t demonstrated much in the way of contrition.

Appearances at the Emmys and on The Late Late Show with Stephen Colbert suggest an eagerness on the part of both men to remain in the spotlight and capitalise on their newfound notoriety.

But should RTÉ be facilitating their nascent media careers using licence fee money to fly them over for vapid interviews? What purpose does it serve other than to massage the egos of Spicer and Scaramucci? Let’s not forget that Spicer bragged to US publication Axios about landing paid appearances on Irish television and claimed to be ‘one of the most popular guys in Ireland’.

This isn’t public service broadcasting. It’s bottom of the barrel stuff designed to stir controversy and provoke reaction. We’re not gaining any newsworthy insights into the Trump administration. Rather we are rewarding these people for their proximity to Trump and giving them exactly what they want in return: fame, money, power.

Spicer and Scaramucci’s exploits in the Trump White House turned them into international laughing stocks. But now that they are being flown to Dublin on taxpayer dime for television appearances, they’re having the last laugh. Turns out the joke was on us.