Fianna Fail, the main government party, is under attack for recruiting a U.S. company to host its new website.

Irish company Hosting 365, which had the €12,000-a-year contract to host the site, has lost out to Blue State Digital, whose founding partner Joe Rospar was new media director of the widely-acclaimed online campaign that helped put President Barack Obama into office. 

Now Hosting 365 has questioned why Fianna Fail isn’t “championing the Irish technology sector instead of moving business outside the country”.

A spokesman for Hosting 365 told The Irish Times, “The move is akin to Alex Ferguson wagering on Liverpool to win the Premier League, as it undermines Irish hosting companies’ credentials.”

Support for Hosting 365’s view has come from the boss of another Irish online consultancy, Arekibo. Managing director Martin Casey said, “Ireland have a number of excellent web development companies that could provide Fianna Fail and any other Irish company with innovative, creative and world class internet solutions.

“So why did Fianna Fail not choose an Irish company to advise, design and deliver their new website? It doesn’t say much for their confidence in our ability and it upsets me to think that the party in government would do this.”

Fianna Fail defended its decision to move the hosting of its website to the U.S., but claimed it’s only on a temporary basis.

A spokesperson for the party said, “The new Web site is still at the development stage and is very much a work in progress. While the site is being developed it was necessary to temporarily host the website in the U.S., and Fianna Fail will be looking to transfer the hosting back to Ireland once it is ready to do so.”