Written Answers. - Departmental Expenditure.
Michael Ring
Question:
115
Mr. Ring
asked the
Minister for Foreign Affairs
the amount which was spent in his Department for 2002 for media purposes and advertising; the areas in which the money was spent, that is, national papers, provincial papers, RTE radio, local radios and so on; the amount of money which was spent on videos for promotional, educational or advertising purposes; the public relations staff which are employed in his Department; and the cost for 2002.
[4177/03]
Expenditure on media advertising for 2002 was €251,605.51. This can be broken down as follows:
(i) Expenditure under the general advertising subhead of Vote 38 of €61,543.04 and expenditure of €20,411.00 from the Passport Office subhead. Expenditure under these subheads includes advertisements such as the Department's opening hours over the Christmas period, advertising of employment opportunities, e.g. legal trainees in our legal division, and the advertising of conferences. It is not possible, in the time frame given, to provide the Deputy with a breakdown of each item of expenditure.
(ii) A total of €18,336.92 relating to advertisements in the national newspapers advising the public of the availability of the revised White Paper on the Treaty of Nice and Seville Declarations in 2002, following publication in July 2002.
(iii) A total of €18,373.77 relating to advertisements in the national newspapers advising the public of the availability of the summary information guide on the Treaty of Nice and Seville Declarations in 2002, during October 2002.
(iv) A total of €132,940.78 relating to the design and production of a television and print advertising campaign for World AIDS Day 2002, as well as the purchase of space on TV networks RTE, UTV, Channel 4, E4, Sky, and TG4 and national newspapers –The Irish Times, Irish Independent, The Star, Irish Examiner, Evening Herald, Evening Echo, Sunday Independent, The Sunday Tribune, Sunday World, The Sunday Business Post and Ireland on Sunday.
The Deputy will also wish to be aware that the following media-related expenditure took place during 2002. The Communicating Europe Initiative, CEI, funds a range of projects and activities aimed at increasing public awareness about the European Union and Ireland's interaction with it. The CEI allocated a total of €43,782.52 for two series of the "Eurofile" television programme. The programmes featured news and information about developments in the European Union and in the National Forum on Europe. The first series of "Eurofile" aired from February to May 2002 and was transmitted on City TV Dublin, Meath Province 5 Television and on the EBS satellite system. The second series of "Eurofile", which was aired in autumn 2002, was transmitted on TG4. Also, Ireland Aid has contributed for a number of years to the operation costs of the "Worlds Apart" series on RTE Radio 1. In 2002 this contribution was €47,000.
Apart from the projects referred to above, there was no expenditure on promotional, educational or advertising videos. While there are no staff employed solely for public relations work, the Department's press section is its primary interface with the public and media. There are five permanent civil servants working in the press section and an information officer employed on a contract basis in the Department's development co-operation directorate. The salary costs for these officials during 2002 were €243,933.
