Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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52. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the total amount spent by his Department on advertisements, including traditional forms of advertisement and online advertising, in each of the past ten years and to date in 2021. [54905/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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As answered in Question No. 12899 on 31^stMay 2016, which requested of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation “the amount of money spent by her Department on media advertising from March 2011 to February 2016, showing the media organisation, newspaper, radio, television, or any other forms of media to which advertisement fees were paid by her Department; and the amount of money paid per year to each individual media organisation in tabular form”, the following table indicates the amount spent by my Department on advertising from 2011 to 2015.

The amount my Department has spent on advertising from 2016 to date is as set out in the following table.

Note that in 2020, the major cross government advertising campaigns of COVID and Brexit were led by the Departments of An Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs respectively but supported by other Departments including my own. Invoices for services related to Brexit advertising in 2020 to the value of €129,000 weren’t received by my Department before year end, and they were instead paid out as an unanticipated expenditure in January 2021. My Department’s spending also increased in 2021 due to my Department’s promotion of COVID related policies, including: Remote Working, Shop Safely and Work Safely.