Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 to 9, inclusive, 24 and 149 together.

The bulk of the spend in 2020 to date has been to deal with the Covid-19 emergency. Of the €11.4 million spent to date, €4.2 million was on advertising in publications and €5.8 million on broadcast advertising. Since March, my Department has co-ordinated communications for the whole-of-government response to the pandemic and this necessitated expenditure on a broad range of targeted public information campaigns.

The overall communications strategy for Covid-19 is based on a co-ordinated response that ensures maximum clarity for citizens, business and our wider community. This aligns both with WHO and European Centre for Disease Control, ECDC, advice, both of which emphasise the importance of ensuring the general public is aware of the seriousness of the Covid-19 outbreak and, further, that a high degree of population understanding, community engagement and acceptance of the measures put in place are key in preventing further spread.

It is also recommended that communications strategies should target different audiences and provide the rationale behind the measures, also outlining the necessity of putting a support system in place to provide essential services and supplies, for example, food and medication, and to monitor vulnerable individuals. It was also necessary to run campaigns at each phase of the roadmap as restrictions were lifted. The campaigns associated with the roadmap were aimed at giving people time to prepare so businesses could be ready to open. Campaigns were developed to ensure businesses were aware of the broad level of supports being made available to them by Government and to raise awareness of the Return to Work Safely Protocol and the July jobs stimulus package which was focused on restoring confidence and investment in the recovery.

More recently, public information campaigns have been run as restrictions were placed, and then subsequently lifted, in regions such as counties Kildare, Laois and Offaly and when counties Dublin and Donegal were placed under level 3 restrictions. In all such cases, it is essential that citizens, business owners and communities are informed of the decisions being made by Government, and campaigns are developed and implemented to make the public aware of these decisions.

In 2019, the spend included €12,000 on online advertising and €17,000 on video and radio production. My Department paid for public information campaigns on budgets 2019 and 2020, public consultation notices for draft language schemes and for the Vótáil 100 commemorations. There was also expenditure for advertisements relating to the recruitment of judges and the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC, Commission, which is an independent statutory commission that contracted services to manage their public relations responsibilities.

In 2018. the €1.6 million spend was across online, print and broadcast advertising and production costs. This spend related to major cross-government public information campaigns that the Department funded centrally. These campaigns included Healthy Ireland, Global Ireland, Project Ireland 2040 and the self-employed benefits campaign, aimed at ensuring self-employed people are aware of the new and existing benefits available to them.

In 2017, the €40,000 spend related to cross-government public information campaigns on Healthy Ireland and self-employed benefits.

In 2016, the €10,000 spend related to the Home to Work information campaign.

A detailed annual breakdown of the advertising spend will accompany the reply to the questions. The Department does not engage third party media monitoring services. As part of the press office’s normal operation, both traditional print and social media are monitored for content of relevance to the work of the Department.

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