Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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352. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the percentage of posts made on each of her Departmental social media accounts and platforms that were exclusively in Irish between 1 May 2020 and 30 April 2021, inclusive; the percentage of posts made on each of her Departmental social media accounts and platforms that featured bilingual translations in Irish and English between 1 May 2020 and 30 April 2021, inclusive; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [26590/21]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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My Departmentcovers a broad remit which includes the tourism, culture, arts, Gaeltacht, sport and media sectors.  The Department posts social media messaging relevant to activities and programmes across all of these sectors, with annual output standing at close to 6,000 posts across the entirety of its social media platforms, which includes Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

The Department strives to promote the Irish language throughout social media messaging, by regularly sharing content relating to, and posted by, bodies and agencies under our remit whose work relates to the development of the Irish language and Gaeltacht regions.  Departmental posts relating to the Gaeltacht or the Irish language are always posted in the Irish language and news of particular national significance e.g major funding schemes, or state commemorations is generally posted bilingually.  Between May 1, 2020 and the April 30, 2021, the percentage of posts in Irish or bilingual were as set out in the table below:

My Department has been building its social media capacity and activity over the past two years. As this continues to grow,  it is intended to increase the proportion of bilingual and Irish language postings.