Departmental Expenditure

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 January 2026

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Wednesday, 21 January 2026

Questions (351)

Malcolm Byrne

Question:

351. Deputy Malcolm Byrne asked the Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht the total sums spent for each year from 2016 to 2025, inclusive of advertising, by his 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). [4860/26]

Written answers

Minister for Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht

The use of social media platforms are an integral part of most awareness and advertising campaigns, and as such my Department does incur costs related to this. Expenditure on these platforms is carefully managed. It should be noted that the increased costs for 2024 and 2025 relate to national public awareness campaigns on responsible dog ownership and regulations relating to ownership of XL Bully type dogs. These dog control related functions have since transferred to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The table below details the information requested by the Deputy. In some instances it is not possible to disaggregate for online expenditure given the nature of contract and the structure of the companies involved. As my Department was established on 19th July 2017, the information provided commences on that date. I can confirm that there were no payments to influencers on such platforms.

	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025
Twitter / X	Nil	Nil	€6,754	€167	€4,799	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil
Facebook	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	€26,190	€16, 242
Instagram	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Figure above represent expenditure on Meta which includes Facebook and Instagram	Figure above represent expenditure on Meta which includes Facebook and Instagram
TikTok	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	€5,535	€6,222
YouTube	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	€16,238
LinkedIn	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	€11,081	€1,230
SnapChat	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	€5,947
Google	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	Nil	€8,271 (Google, Meta and Youtube)	€4,931	€1,232

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