Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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374. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her expenditure on advertising, detailing the objective, duration, media platforms, advertising agency or agencies and cost of each advertising campaign, in each of the years 2015 to 2025. [37029/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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Total advertising spend (including design and creative costs) is outlined below.

In this period, the department has engaged in a number of multimedia advertising campaigns. Up to 2024, the department engaged PHD media for media buying and Javelin and ZeroG for creative services. Spark Foundry (OneCore) won the contract for media buying and we commenced working with them in late 2024.

These include the Teaching Transforms campaign, which has been ongoing since 2018, to promote the teaching profession and encourage post-primary and third level students to apply for programmes of initial teacher education. This involves two bursts annually, one in January to advise of CAO deadline and again ahead of the CAO change of mind deadline in July. The various phases of the multimedia campaign have used a range of channels, including digital (online video and social media), radio (traditional and digital), and print (national papers and college press).

The department has, over the last number of years, engaged in public information campaigns in respect of school reopening, to ensure widespread awareness of public health advice in the context of COVID-19. It has undertaken targeted advertising and awareness campaigns for students involved in the 2020 Calculated Grades process and the 2021 Leaving Certificate and Accredited Grades process to ensure awareness of the changed procedures under these models, necessitated by the pandemic.

Other campaigns have included school transports advertising since 2023 to let parents and guardians of school-aged children (particularly in rural Ireland) know about the Bus Eireann portal, there they can check eligibility for free school transport and or register and pay for school bus tickets. The campaign is run in two bursts, one when the portal opens and a second to inform the audience of its closing date. This is another multimedia campaign that comprises regional and national print media, radio and digital/social. Similarly, the department has run a multimedia campaign in recent years in relevant bursts to advise of the Free School Books initiative and both primary and post-primary level.

From 2015 to 2018, the department ran a series of multimedia campaigns on European Schools recruitment, Language Connect Awareness Initiatives and Out-of-School Education provision.