Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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262. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the level of expenditure by his Department or organisations under the aegis of his Department for each of the past five years on photography, advertising, communications advice, public relations, website development, media interview training and preparation; the events, campaigns or policies to which this expenditure related; the company or person to which such payments were made, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32652/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that in the time available, it has only proved possible to provide the information requested for the period January 2015 to June 2017.

Photography

My Department only avails of the services of external photographic agencies where it is warranted, in particular for major events and State occasions. My Department would, for example, have hired an official photographer to document the visit earlier this year of the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, which received positive overseas coverage.

In September 2011, my Department led a collaborative advertised tender process for the procurement of a multi-supplier competitive framework of photographic service providers. This framework was for use by all Government Departments. The purpose of the framework was to ensure Departments’ compliance with EU procurement rules and to ensure value for money by having a competitive process for photographic assignments.

The Office of Government Procurement is currently leading on the creation of a new Multi Supplier Framework Agreement for the provision of Professional Photography and Videography services and my Department has inputted into this process.

In addition, my Department now makes greater use of in-house resources for photography.

The photography costs associated with particular events in 2015, 2016 and to date in 2017 are listed in tables 1-3.

Public Relations

My Department has not engaged outside public relations companies for the purposes of public relations advice.

My Department has from time to time commissioned companies with a public relations and communications background but this has been for the provision of other professional services such as project management, logistics and event management, particularly in relation to Irish Aid public outreach activities.

Public Relations Training

The Public Relations Institute of Ireland (PRII) has been engaged to provide training to staff from my Department’s Communications Unit on dealing with media representatives and communicating the Department’s key messages effectively.

Separately, other senior Department staff members have also received training on communicating in crisis situations, which is fundamental in ensuring that the Department serves Irish citizens at home and abroad during consular emergencies overseas involving Irish citizens. The relevant payments made in the past two years and to date in 2017 are listed in table 4.

Advertising

My Department pays for advertising where it is considered necessary to bring important information, such as job notices, to public attention. Our reliance on this type of advertising has decreased year-on-year due in part to our improved use of free social media channels.

In addition, Ireland’s diplomatic missions abroad may undertake advertising with regard to a range of miscellaneous local matters. The costs incurred under this heading are relatively small and it was not possible to gather and compile the data requested by the Deputy in the time available.

Recently my Department conducted two major public information campaigns to raise awareness of important initiatives we have rolled out – the TravelWise smartphone app, launched in June 2016, and Online Passport Renewals, launched in April 2017.

The TravelWise smartphone app makes all of the Department’s travel advice available to citizens offline and in their pockets as well as being a valuable messaging tool for use by our Consular Service during a crisis situation overseas. My Department advertised the TravelWise app widely to ensure a good uptake of this valuable service by our citizens.

Online adult passport renewals are a key part of the Passport Reform Programme and my Department advertised the new service widely in order to ensure a good uptake by citizens of another innovative service. As this campaign remains ongoing and relevant invoices have yet to be received, data on this expenditure is not yet available.

Advertising costs for 2015, 2016 and to date in 2017 are listed in table 5.

Website Development

The costs listed in table 6 refer to both maintenance and development of the Department’s 84 websites (including www.dfa.ie, www.irishaid.ie, www.globalirish.ie and the websites of Ireland’s 80 diplomatic missions abroad).

The Department’s websites are used to publish valuable information for citizens, including on passports and citizenship, updates on the work of the Department and its Ministers and Government travel advisories for over 200 countries abroad. The Department’s websites receive in excess of 27 million page views per year.

Citizens can also use my Department’s websites to directly access services including Passport Tracking, the Citizen Registration facility and Foreign Birth Registration and innovative new services such as Online Passport Renewals.

Our current focus in this area is to deliver fully responsive websites that enable us to better service the growing proportion of citizens who access the internet through mobile devices.

Table 1. Photography Costs 2015

Table 5. Advertising Costs

Table 6. Website Development Costs