99. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs the frequency and duration of the publicity, marketing or advertising campaigns conducted by his Department to date in 2024; the purpose of these campaigns; the cost of these campaigns; and the agencies that conducted these campaigns, in tabular form. [41180/24]

The Department of Foreign Affairs uses public awareness campaigns and advertising to promote essential services to citizens at home and abroad, such as passport and consular services, and to promote Irish interests and values internationally. In recent years, public awareness campaigns in relation to COVID-19 travel restrictions and Brexit have formed a significant part of advertising costs.

Successfully communicating Ireland’s values and interests to global audiences, including through a range of online and social media channels, is integral to implementing our foreign policy objectives as set out in the Programme for Government and the Department’s Statement of Strategy.

The focus, duration, purpose, costs and outcome of the publicity, marketing and advertising campaigns conducted by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 2024, as of 8 October 2024, is outlined below in tabular format. These costs relate to multi-day campaigns where our promotional costs exceeded €1,000 and one-off sponsored posts are not included. A third-party media agency (PHD Media Ireland), retained under a cross-Government procurement process, was engaged for the purpose of progressing these campaigns, including the placing of advertisements across online, digital, press and print media platforms, while creative input in different instances was provided by ‘big O Creative’ (retained under a DFA-specific procurement process) and ‘Javelin Advertising’ (retained under a cross-Government procurement process).