Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Taoiseach has acknowledged that a tender worth €130,000, excluding VAT, was issued to conduct polling on attitudes towards Government, along with a six month rolling tracker poll. Who commissioned that research and who designed it for Government? In terms of Question No. 4, last week there was a series of sponsored advertisements on Facebook promoting the budget, with prime positions for the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, along with promoted tweets. That was the first time we have actually seen bought advertising promoting a Government and particular Ministers. How much was spent on this political promotion? Is it co-ordinated by the new strategic communications unit? Will this now be an ongoing feature, with paid-for advertising, rather than the use of merrionstreet.iein the normal way, showing shots of the Minister for Finance at budget time? Will we see more of this paid advertising targeted at individual Facebook and other social media users?

In his response today, the Taoiseach said that an assistant secretary in each Department will now be put in charge of communications. I take it that this is not an exclusive role for an assistant secretary. Can I presume this will simply be an added role for an existing cohort of assistant secretaries?

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