Ms Sarah O’Connor:

Mr. Rowland’s team, on the research side of things, analyses a wealth of important data in that regard. The indicators are measured and reported on at European level so we can track how we compare at that level. If the Deputy is interested, Mr. Rowland can take her through those. If any of the measures are off kilter, we ask whether we need to invest in an ad in the space in question and whether the ad we have is good enough. We ask whether the tracking tells us the ad has been working, or whether it has perhaps decayed such that people are not absorbing it in the same way anymore, meaning we might need to do something new. Then we decide on the ad we are going to invest in, brief the agency and do the tracking from there. We examine not only our analysis but also what is happening behaviourally.

The Deputy may be aware from the Safe and Sober Seminar, which Mr. Rowland’s team ran in January, that we are very concerned about the slippage in terms of alcohol levels. From 2019 until now, we have seen peer acceptability of drink-driving rise by 10%. That is very serious and a very big societal shift. Therefore, even though our ad, involving Gillian and her son Ciarán, is amazing and performs very strongly, we believe we need another piece in the conversation regarding alcohol. Part of the funding we have agreed with the Department for later this year is to create a new alcohol ad. It is not a case of using the same ad all the time as one might need something different for a different audience. You go from there. That is the kind of sophistication we bring. At an overarching level, we have a new communications strategy that helps us to identify the top-ten topics, and those are really led by the research, through which Mr. Rowland’s team tells us what it is worried about and the concerns so we can build from there.