Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 371: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if his Department had identified difficulties in external communications prior to the Government assuming office in 2002. [5718/05]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

My Department has on a number of occasions prior to 2002 identified specific communication requirements which could not be met by the resources available in the Department. On some of those occasions, the shortfall was met by contracting specialist communications expertise.

In 2000, my Department awarded a contract for assistance in devising and implementing the national spatial strategy, NSS, communications campaign. Included in that campaign were a range of marketing and advertising initiatives, to promote awareness and interest in the NSS, to disseminate information, identify and engage the target audience for the consultation process and support that process through organising consultation forums at regional level at various stages during the strategy's preparation.

In 1998, my Department awarded a contract for assistance with advertising campaigns in connection with the draft register of electors and the referendums on the Good Friday Agreement and the Treaty of Amsterdam. For a number of years prior to 2002, specialist assistance was contracted for anti-litter awareness campaigns. A non-established temporary civil servant acted as communications co-ordinator to my Department for the period from October 1999 to June 2002.