Written answers

Tuesday, 13 October 2020

Department of An Taoiseach

Question Heading

Photo of Barry CowenBarry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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8. To ask the Taoiseach the amount spent on public relations, promotion and advertising, including multimedia, in his Department in each of the years 2016 to 2019 and up to 30 June 2020 prior to his appointment as Taoiseach. [29864/20]

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The following table details the figures requested by the Deputy.

Online Advertising
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 - to 30th June
€0 €0 €436,823 €12,281 €900,216
Broadcast Advertising
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 - to 30th June
€0 €0 €301,606 €0 €5,301,839
Print Advertising
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 - to 30th June
€10,629 €10,659 €425,297 €4,130 €4,127,542
Video/radio/advert production costs
2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 - to 30th June
€0 €29,957 €501,576 €17,208 €341,535

The bulk of the spend to date in 2020 has been to deal with the COVID-19 emergency. The 2020 figures include spend on all Campaigns which were commenced before June 30th .

Since March, my Department has co-ordinated communications for the whole-of-government response to the pandemic. This necessitated expenditure on a broad range of targeted public information campaigns.

The overall communications strategy for Covid-19 is based on a coordinated response that ensures maximum clarity for citizens, businesses and our wider community.This aligns with both World Health Organisation (WHO) and European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) advice, both of which emphasise the importance of ensuring the general public is aware of the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak and further that a high degree of population understanding, community engagement and acceptance of the measures put in place are key in preventing further spread.

It is also recommended that communication strategies should target different audiences and provide the rationale behind the measures, also outlining the necessity to put a support system in place to provide essential services and supplies (e.g. food and medication), and to monitor vulnerable individuals.

Campaigns have included Radio, newspaper and social elements.

A number of campaigns were run as restrictions were imposed in order to explain the measures and reinforce public health messages.

At the beginning of April, a campaign was run to raise awareness of the Community Call Forum, which was established to provide important supports and services to any vulnerable person who needed them via local groups working with State agencies and community and voluntary groups.

On 1stMay last, the Government’s Roadmap to Reopen Society and Business was published. A communications campaign was run to explain the different phases of the Roadmap.

It was also necessary to run campaigns at each phase of the Roadmap as restrictions were lifted. The campaigns associated with the Roadmap were aimed at giving people time to prepare, so that businesses could be ready to open.

Campaigns were developed to ensure Businesses were aware of the broad level of supports being made available by Government to them and to raise awareness of the Return to Work Safely protocol.

In all such cases, it is essential that citizens, business owners and communities are informed of the decisions being made by Government, and campaigns are developed and implemented to make the public aware of these decisions.

In 2019, the spend included €12,000 on online advertising, and €17,000 on video and radio ad production. My Department paid for public information campaigns relating to Budgets 2019 and 2020, for public consultation notices for draft language schemes, and for the ‘Votail100 ’ commemorations. There was also expenditure for advertisements relating to the recruitment of Judges.

In 2018 , the €1.6m spend was across online, print, broadcast advertising, and production costs. The spend related to major cross-Government public information campaigns that the Department funded centrally. These campaigns included Healthy Ireland, Global Ireland, Project Ireland 2040 and the Self Employed Benefits campaign, aimed at ensuring self-employed people are aware of the new and existing benefits available to them.

In 2017,the €40,000 spend related to cross-Government public information campaigns on Healthy Ireland and Self-Employed benefits.

In, 2016,the €10,000 spend related to the Home to Work information campaign.

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