Departmental Expenditure

Wednesday, 21 January 2026

Questions (14)

Malcolm Byrne

Question:

14. Deputy Malcolm Byrne asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the total sums spent for each year from 2016 to 2025, inclusive of advertising, by her Department on social media or online platforms, including identifying separately payments to influencers on such platforms; and to set out the annual totals for that period to each specific platform, including but not limited to major platforms (details supplied). [4854/26]

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Written answers

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade uses social media and online platforms, including through paid advertising, to communicate public awareness campaigns and promote essential services to citizens at home and abroad, and to highlight Irish positions and values internationally. In recent years, public awareness campaigns in relation to passports, COVID-19 travel restrictions and Brexit have formed a significant part of advertising costs.

During the period specified, the Department incurred no expenditure on the use of influencers on social media platforms.

The total amounts spent on social media and online platforms between 2019 and 2025 are outlined in the table below. Please note that Meta encompasses both Facebook and Instagram.

Year	Twitter/X	Meta (Facebook/Instagram)	TikTok	YouTube	Google Search
2019	78,884	98,533	N/A	N/A	107,891
2020	4,539	11,072	N/A	6,202	N/A
2021	49,773	105,389	N/A	22,796	13,230
2022	60,440	104,706	1,453	38,778	26,618
2023	10,347	126,023	8,041	77,108	37,149
2024	16,851	60,446	12,533	24,579	14,564
2025	36,180	87,886	20,603	29,292	N/A

In the time provided, it has only proved possible to retrieve data as sought by the Deputy for the period 2016-2018 grouped across Meta, Twitter/X and YouTube, as outlined in the table below. During this period, there was no expenditure on TikTok or Google Search.

Year	Meta, Twitter/X and Google Search
2016	7,578
2017	5,935
2018	69,724