Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Foreign Affairs uses advertising and public awareness campaigns primarily to promote essential services to citizens at home and abroad, including passport and consular services. In recent years, public awareness campaigns in relation to COVID-19 travel restrictions and Brexit have also formed a significant part of campaigns. The Department also uses advertising to communicate to international audiences with the aim of projecting Ireland’s visibility and values abroad. This has included the promotion of public diplomacy initiatives and campaigns such as St Patrick’s Day, Global Ireland, 50 years in the EU, and Bloomsday.

An overview of spending on advertising and public awareness campaigns over the past ten years is laid out in the table below.

The Department engages the services of PHD Media, a media agency retained under a cross-Government procurement process, for the purposes of advertisement placement and reaching audiences across a range of mediums including internet, print media, radio, outdoor and TV. A large majority of the Department’s spend on advertising and public awareness campaigns is therefore conducted through this agency without direct engagement or financial transactions with media organisations such as RTÉ.

The Department’s records indicate that advertising spend for the period in question with RTÉ by PHD Media on behalf of the Department amounts to €723,901 across internet, radio and television. The Department been assured that there is no use of a ‘advertising barter account’ to facilitate any of this advertising spend.

The Department has no record of further direct advertising spend with RTÉ during this period.