Dáil debates
Wednesday, 26 January 2022
Ceisteanna - Questions
Departmental Expenditure
1:52 pm
Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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8. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the advertising spend and initiatives promoted by his Department in 2021; and the project budget and plans in place for 2022. [61502/21]
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My Department incurred expenditure of €11,615,375 on advertising in 2021. This figure is provisional until the 2021 accounts are finalised. The majority of that spend related to Covid-19 public information campaigns, amounting to €11,565,853. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic there have been 68 separate public information campaigns, with each campaign using a combination of national press, regional press, radio, digital display, social media, TV and online video. The campaigns played a vital role by informing citizens at all stages about encouraging key behaviours necessary to control the virus; the various supports to businesses and citizens being made available by the Government during the pandemic; the implementation of the vaccination programme; and the restrictions as they were introduced and subsequently lifted.
In 2021, the non-Covid advertising costs that were incurred were €27,638 in relation to the advertising of judicial and Director of Public Prosecutions appointments; €20,625 to facilitate a public consultation by the Future of Media Commission; and €1,617 for an information campaign regarding budget 2021. A further €4 million has been allocated in budget 2022 for expenditure on Covid-19 public communications. My Department will continue to co-ordinate communications for the whole-of-government response to the pandemic. There will continue to be expenditure on public information notices and campaigns as needed as we continue to manage the response to the Covid-19 virus.
Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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I thank the Taoiseach. I understand that over €9 million was spent on Covid-related advertising last year. More than €500,000 of that was spent on social media advertising. By and large, this is a huge level of expenditure by the Government. While it is absolutely necessary, I posit that it also gives the State a huge power when it comes to media. The Government is a huge contributor to media advertising, which we all know with the changing media they are very dependent on.
With most restrictions lifted, the prospect of less spend will also have a major impact on the revenues of newspapers and broadcasters, etc. It is not clear to us what oversight is in place for this spending and who decides where the advertisements are run, where the spend goes and what the reasoning behind it is. Will the Taoiseach give us some information on who make those decisions and how? I am aware from many people who work in local media - radio and newspapers - that this has caused great concern with regard to how X publications and Y broadcasters were included but they were not. Local radio stations and local newspapers are deeply concerned and would like transparency on this. Will the Taoiseach tell the House who was particularly in charge of authorising the individual spend and deciding which media bodies got advertising across the country, nationally or locally and by broadcast and by newspaper? Perhaps the Taoiseach will tell us if it was outsourced or partially outsourced, and if there was oversight by the Taoiseach's officials in the Department of such outsourcing. Will the Taoiseach tell the House if his Department expects to continue the same level of spend this year, or how much he estimates it will be tailored down? There are a lot of major questions with regard to the impact of the spend, how it was decided and whether it was outsourced. One such question relates to the possibility of disproportionate spending with some broadcasters and media compared to the smaller media, broadcasters and newspapers across the State.
Outside of the pandemic spending, what specific campaigns are planned by the Taoiseach's Department for this year? I note, for example, that the volume of people going for screening is not what it should be. The Taoiseach is aware that I have spoken to him on this issue many times. Will the Taoiseach be contemplating campaigns to increase awareness and participation in screening programmes, especially as they are so important? The HPV vaccine is a real concern for me. This is another issue on which I have campaigned and fought for inside this Chamber. Will the Taoiseach include campaigns on the HPV vaccine?
Are there other campaigns that relate to the promotion of Government launches, plans or reports that the Taoiseach's Department is projecting for this year? Surely at this stage, at the end of January, the Taoiseach will have decided same. Does the Taoiseach expect any spending on advertising to take place outside of the State this year? If so, will the Taoiseach tell the House if this spending will take place in the UK, Northern Ireland, the EU or the US?
I must have asked ten different questions there. I ask all of these questions because I remember quite distinctly the Taoiseach's contributions in this Chamber - when he sat over where Deputy McDonald sits now - on the strategic communications unit, spending, the lack of oversight, the lack of foresight, small newspapers, small radio stations, political actions etc. We need full accountability and full transparency, and we also need a full audit of how spending has been done, who made the decisions, whether it was outsourced, and who made the final calls. In the Taoiseach's situation, obviously, he must practise what he preaches.
2:02 pm
Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)
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Last week, the Taoiseach told us he will play a key role in ensuring departmental delivery on the commitments to end domestic, sexual and gender-based violence, and I welcome that. One of the most urgent actions required to address Ireland's failure in this area is our obligations under the Istanbul Convention on Domestic Violence, in particular refuge places. A report published by Safe Ireland during the pandemic found that, on average, seven requests every day for refuge went unmet because of a lack of capacity. We know there are nine counties with no capacity at all in this jurisdiction.
This week, Tusla confirmed to my colleague, Deputy Violet-Anne Wynne, that the refuge and safe home capacity has increased by just four places over the past seven years. Where there is no route out of domestic violence, victims and their children are very often left with no option but to go back to an abusive and violent partner. The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy Roderic O'Gorman, wrote to me on 16 December to confirm he intended to bring the completed Tusla review of accommodation for victims of domestic violence to Cabinet in early January. He said the review would be published at the same time and that all stakeholders would be briefed by Tusla.
However, yesterday I was informed by the Minister that the review will not now be published this month as promised and that the timing of its publication is now only being considered by the Minister for Justice. This is an unacceptable delay. The publication of this review, which has now been completed, should not be contingent on the publication of the third strategy. The Minister also informed me he met the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice on 18 January to discuss the response of the Government to domestic and gender-based violence and to ensure prompt advancement of his actions. Did the Taoiseach agree to the delay of the publication of the Tusla review at this meeting? If so, what was his rationale for that? I know this is a very bad decision. We need to see the review and I urge the Taoiseach to ensure it is published without any further delay.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I would like to see Government information flowing in respect of two areas with the sort of frequency and sophistication that we saw around Covid announcements. I note there is a Government of Ireland document entitled Be Winter Ready. We discussed at length the question of fuel energy price hikes. Notwithstanding the debate around all of that, there is a real danger of people on low incomes, such as pensioners and so on, freezing during the winter and excess winter deaths. Many of those people do not know where they get help.
We can debate whether the help that is available is sufficient, but many people do not know where to get that help. I am dealing with a man who has cancer. His boiler has been broken for three or four months and he has been freezing since October. He does not know where to go. He needs help and information. The Government is telling people to be winter ready. We need to get information out to the people who may need to make choices about turning off heating or who do not have their heating on about where they can get help and how they can get out of that situation. I appeal for that kind of information to be made available.
Second, there was a shambles around the PUP over the Christmas period, and that continues. There is huge confusion about the entitlement to the PUP. I discovered from our taxi driver friends, who were one of the big victims of this, that people thought PRSI contributions were being awarded to them while they were in receipt of the PUP. As far as I understand it, that should have happened. However, when people went to apply for the PUP they were told they did not have sufficient PRSI contributions or there was significant confusion. People are having difficulty getting the help they need. We need Government information to explain how people can get answers.
Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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There are two minutes remaining in this in the slot. I am anxious to allow Deputy Murnane O'Connor to come in and for the Taoiseach to respond.
Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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I have had several meetings with the Taoiseach about women's refuges. Carlow is one of the nine counties in Ireland without a women's refuge. I know how committed the Taoiseach is to this. I have tried to get through to different agencies about this and I have spoken to Tusla. I ask that the review is reported as soon as possible so that we know what is happening and which areas will and will not have a refuge. Carlow urgently needs a women's refuge. I thank the Taoiseach for speaking to me about this issue a number of times.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all of the Deputies for the questions raised. On Deputy Alan Kelly's question-----
Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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It was the only question I asked.
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, but it provoked questions from others which the Deputy must be happy with. In any event, I will deal with the core point he made. I did not involve myself with the specifics. I take the Deputy's point about power and such a large volume of expenditure being allocated to advertising. It happened in the context of a once in 100-year event. The pandemic is still with us, and I remember right throughout the pandemic Members in the House calling for different types of communication. The breakdown of the money spent might be of interest to the Deputy because we hear different things and people will complain.
A breakdown of the advertising spent on public information campaigns shows an even split of spend across national and regional media outlets. I am told that in 2020 the national radio advertising spend was €4 million and the regional spend was €4.8 million. The 2020 national press advertising spend was €3.4 million, with the regional spend being €3.5 million. In 2021, the national radio advertising spend was €2.1 million and the spend on regional radio advertising was €2.4 million. The 2021 national and regional press spend were both €1.3 million, an even split.
I will have to come back to the Deputies on some of their questions on whether external advisers in the media world were brought in. At one stage, we were concerned about social media, in particular campaigns targeted at young people. We improved on that in terms of the campaigns developed following a significant increase in case numbers among 18 to 24 year olds in autumn 2020. The Government Information Service, GIS, Department of Health and HSE engaged with representative groups to understand the needs of this demographic. They worked with young people.
The insights generated from the research these groups conducted confirmed that young people had been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, and were concerned about it and its impact on them and their loved ones. It also revealed that they wanted this to be recognised and for information to be given to them in the appropriate way by their peers. Taking on board this insight, we worked with an agency with a track record of communicating with this demographic and developed the anti-viral campaign that encouraged this group to assume a leadership role in dealing with the pandemic, generating a movement they could relate to that was delivered by their peers. The campaign was very successful, and utilised platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram. It evolved based on feedback from young people and the final strand featured the stories of young people who had been directly affected by the virus. It has been particularly effective and has performed extremely well, with overall impressions and reach of 18.8 million and 1.48 million, respectively. I can send the Deputies information on the engagement metrics.
That is an illustration of the approach that was adopted. It was all about getting the message about Covid restrictions and behaviour across. The most recent campaign, RSVP, was particularly effective, and involved information on moving from a restrictive environment to what people should and should not do and what steps they should take.
I will follow up on Deputy McDonald's discussion with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, in terms of the audit. We need to move very quickly on the gaps in the provision of refuge places and centres. Our meeting was focused on the lead Department, which is the Department of Justice, and how to deal with wraparound services. The outcome of the meeting was that the Minister for Justice's Department would be the lead Department in respect of domestic violence.
Deputy Murnane O'Connor has, in fairness, consistently raised the issue of the absence of a centre in Carlow.
We will continue to work with the Deputy and other public representatives in the area to proceed with that.
Deputy Boyd Barrett's point was well made in respect of winter-ready campaigns. Once we emerge from the pandemic, we should be able to do more specific campaigns. That should also fall to other Departments. The Department of Social Protection and other Departments have campaigns within their policy remit.