Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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391. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the details of the use of external public relations firms employed by her Department per annum since March 2011 in tabular form; the list of uses of the external public relations firm; the internal Department policy with regard to employing external groups; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39496/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs was established under that title on 7 July 2016. It has responsibility for all the matters that previously came within the remit of the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which was itself established on 2 June 2011 and, in addition, is also responsible for certain functions transferred from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and from the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. Accordingly, the information requested by the Deputy is set out in the table below in respect of the period from 2 June 2011.

Value for money is a critical consideration in assessing whether external firms should be engaged to provide public relations services or any other services. No external public relations firms were engaged by my Department at any time over the past four years. A public relations firm was engaged on two occasions in earlier years to provide services that the Department, which was newly established at that time, was not in a position to provide itself.