Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 172: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if agencies, boards, quangos or other bodies within the remit of his Department have carried out advertising campaigns to promote policies or programmes being implemented by those agencies or by his Department in the years 2005, 2006 and 2007; the campaign or relevant programme; the cost of advertising in publications, broadcast advertising, online advertising, outdoor advertising, and other forms of advertising as well as consultancy or production costs for each of these years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22345/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The information requested by the Deputy is currently being compiled and will be sent to him.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 173: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if agencies, boards, quangos or other bodies within the remit of his Department have carried out or will carry out advertising campaigns to promote policies or programmes being implemented by those agencies or by his Department in the course of 2008; the campaign or relevant programme; the cost of advertising in publications, broadcast advertising, online advertising, outdoor advertising and other forms of advertising as well as consultancy or production costs to date in 2008; the anticipated cost by the end of 2008; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22359/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The information requested by the Deputy is currently being compiled and will be sent to him shortly.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Question 174: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if his Department has in the year to date or intends by year end to carry out any advertising campaigns to promote policies or programmes being implemented by his department; the details of those campaigns; the costs of advertising in publications, broadcast advertising, outdoor advertising and any consultancy or production costs incurred in the year to date, the costs that are expected to be incurred by year's end; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22372/08]

Batt O'Keeffe (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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The cost of advertising, which includes, for example, expenditure on the following significant categories, invitations to tender for school building projects, staff appointments in the education sector, invitations to attend local hearings, invitations to forward submissions on education related schemes/projects, and promotional campaigns, is not a separate sub-head, with a specified annual allocation, in the Department's Vote.

These advertising costs, as they arise on various programmes and schemes, are ultimately charged to an appropriate subhead of the Vote generally dealing with the particular programme or scheme. Accordingly, to gauge the likely advertising cost at year end would entail an inordinate amount of work, in collating costs across many programmes, for what would still be an estimated figure.

My Department is able however to track the level of actual spending on advertising and has spent approximately €168,000 to the end of May this year in this regard.

As the placing of advertising is generally contingent on the progress of programmes/schemes and policies the scheduling of advertising campaigns needs to be flexible and therefore the Department cannot easily identify the advertising campaigns it may require from one year to the next.

If the Deputy has a particular advertising campaign in mind I would be happy to have my officials obtain the relevant details and communicate them to the Deputy.

The vast majority of the Department's advertising is placed in the print media.

The State's advertising is subject to a tender process through the Government Supplies Agency. I understand from the Office of Public Works that the current State advertising contract, which came into effect in December 2007 stipulates that the costs of the advertisements are inclusive of all production costs associated with the insertion of the advertisements into the print media.