Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 13 Dec 1995

Vol. 459 No. 7

Written Answers. - Divorce Referendum Costs.

Tony Gregory

Question:

77 Mr. Gregory asked the Minister for Equality and Law Reform the cost of media advertising, booklets and leaflets distributed to the public for the Divorce Referendum; the amounts of public money, if any, given by Government Departments or by bodies whose main funding is public money, over the past two financial years to the Council for the Status of Women/Women's National Council, Right to Remarry Campaign, Divorce Action Group, Irish Countrywomen's Association and the AIM Group; and the cost of salaries and expenses of Oireachtas members, civil servants and programme managers, chargeable to the divorce campaign. [18827/95]

Minister for Equality and Law Reform (Mr. Taylor)

A sum of £500,000 was provided in my Department's 1995 estimates for an information campaign in the run up to the divorce referendum. The estimated overall cost of the campaign to my Department, including salary costs, will be in the region of £480,000.

As none of the staff of my Department was engaged in referendum related work on a wholetime basis it would not be possible to determine the proportion of their salaries attributable to such work. Salary costs amounting to £10,000 approx. were, however, incurred in respect of three persons seconded to my Department during the referendum campaign to provide an information service for the public.

In 1994 a grant of £160,969 was awarded to the Council for the Status of Women, now the National Women's Council of Ireland, of which £20,969 was in respect of the divorce referendum. In 1995 that body was awarded a grant of £147,895 of which £7,895 was in respect of the divorce referendum. The council is, of course, independent of my Department in the manner in which it organises its affairs.

My Department has no responsibility for or control of expenditure incurred by any of the other organisations to which the question refers, or for expenditure incurred by other Government Departments, in relation to the Divorce Referendum or any other matter.