Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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137. To ask the Taoiseach the amount spent by his Department on public relations advice and media advice since January 2020 to date in 2021; and the companies engaged for this advice in tabular form. [22282/21]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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My Department has no contracts with consultants or Public Relations agencies.

The Citizens’ Assembly, which is staffed by my Department, has engaged Q4 Public Relations to provide media liaison and communication services incurring costs of €18,465.71 in 2020 and €5,127.38 to date in 2021. Its remit includes raising public awareness of the Assembly’s work; managing media attendance at two face to face meetings of the Assembly in early 2020 and supporting communication and media outreach regarding seven online meetings of the Assembly between October 2020 and April 2021. Q4 also provide a press office service to engage with the media to respond to queries on the work of the Assembly.

Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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138. To ask the Taoiseach the amount spent by his Department on advertising and public messaging in print, broadcast and online since January 2020 to date in 2021; and the companies engaged to assist with placing the advertisements and the companies advertised with in tabular form. [22300/21]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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A tabular breakdown of the figures requested by the Deputy is below.

PHD Ltd placed all of the media advertisements for my Department for Covid-19. The bulk of the spendin 2021, and last year, relates to the COVID-19 emergency.

A whole-of-government communications response was mobilised by the Department in response to the COVID-19 emergency in mid-March 2020 to formulate and implement a coordinated response that ensures maximum clarity for citizens, businesses and our wider community. This necessitated expenditure on a broad range of targeted public messaging across a range of different information campaigns using national and local radio, national and regional newspapers, and social media platforms. The centralised approach adopted is helping to ensure effectiveness of advertising spend and consistency and amplification of the public health messaging across the various public awareness campaigns and to those hard to reach audiences.

The scale of the communications challenge faced by Government was unprecedented, requiring public information campaigns across every sector of the economy and society.

The communications strategy for Covid-19 required national and international coordination. A series of coordinated campaigns were developed to ensure maximum clarity for citizens, businesses and our wider community.The strategy aligned with both World Health Organisation (WHO) and European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) advice, both of which emphasised 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.This necessitated expenditure on a broad range of targeted public messaging across a range of different information campaigns using national and local radio, national and regional newspapers, and social media platforms. The centralised approach adopted is helping to ensure effectiveness of advertising spend and consistency and amplification of the public health messaging across the various public awareness campaigns and to those hard to reach audiences.