McCreevy's stroll by the canal cost taxpayer £160,000-plus

A television advertisement featuring the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, extolling the euro's virtues as he walks along the banks of a Kildare canal, has cost the taxpayer over £160,000.

The disclosure came in reply to Dβil questions from both Fine Gael and Labour about the amount of money used to promote Government Ministers in television and newspaper advertisements since 1997.

The advertisement is part of the efforts by the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland to get the public ready for the European Union's single currency from January 1st, Mr McCreevy said.

The development is "a major event for the public", he said, and it was "appropriate for me, as Minister for Finance, to appear in the commercial advertisement", he told the Labour TD, Mr Pat Rabbitte. But Mr Rabbitte was unconvinced.

"This is the strongest evidence yet that the Government Ministers are using taxpayers' money to boost their own political profiles in the run-up to the election," he said.

So far, the commercial has been aired 84 times on RT╔ 1, 16 times on Network 2, 80 times on TV3, 47 times on TG4, 106 times on Sky One and 70 times on Sky News. The average cost for each transmission was £257.92, exclusive of VAT.

In all, 86 per cent of the public will have seen Mr McCreevy's canal peregrinations once, including 84 per cent of farmers, 79 per cent of adults aged 35-64, and 82 per cent of ABC1 adults, according to the Changeover Board's advertising agency.

An advertisement by the Minister of State for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Ms Mary Wallace, seeking submissions for the Government's proposed Draft National Plan for Women has cost £12,925.

Radio advertising was considered "crucial" and provoked "an unprecedented response from the public", 700 of whom rang the Department telephone number, said the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue.

The Minister of State for Youth Affairs, Mr Willie O'Dea, appeared in a TV, radio and press campaign to encourage young people to vote in the 1999 European and local elections at a cost of £63,000.

Fifty-one of the 286 advertisements put out by the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs have mentioned its Minister, Mr Dermot Ahern, by name or title since 1997.

However, the Asthma Society's advertisement with the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, cost nothing to make and £66 per transmission, the Minister said.