Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 25 November 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 33 - Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media
Chapter 7 - Oversight of Funding for the European Capital of Culture 2020

9:30 am

Ms Katherine Licken:

I will ask Ms Quill to come in on that but the Department does not have a specific role in relation to print media at the moment so the sound and vision scheme is set up by statute and administered by the BAI, which does not legally have the vires to deliver funding to the print media. Having said that, much Government advertising - I think it was €4.4 million - went to the local media sector. Ms Quill probably has the figures to hand. We are very conscious of the role print media, particularly local print media, play in the regions.