CONSULTANCY, ADVERTISING AND PR:ALL EXPENDITURE by departments and agencies on consultancies, advertising and public relations will be significantly reduced for the remainder of this year and by at least 50 per cent in 2009.
According to the 2008 revised estimates for public services, the Departments of Communications, Transport, Social and Family Affairs and Health and Children had the greatest estimated spend earmarked for consultancy services. The total expenditure on consultancy this year was estimated to be €88 million.
According to figures released by Fine Gael, the Government was to spend an estimated €23 million on advertising this year.
This included estimated spending of €2.8 million by the Department of Communications; €3.34 million by the Department of Transport; €1.7 million by the Department of Finance and €2.25 million by the Department of Justice.
In May, Fine Gael's transport spokesman Fergus O'Dowd TD said the Minister for Transport has sanctioned spending of €2.9 million this year on advertising the construction programme for Transport 21.
Mr O'Dowd said that the Government has spent €15 million on climate change PR and set aside €5 million for the home insulation programme.
Figures provided by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to Fine Gael's Leo Varadkar showed that it planned to spend and estimated €6.2 million on its climate change awareness campaign in 2008. Nearly €1 million more was earmarked for a number of smaller campaigns, making the department the highest spending in terms of advertising.
The estimated cost for consultancy services for the Department of Social and Family Affairs this year was €3.5 million, while the Department of Communications had earmarked consultancy spending of €2.6 million for 2008.
Transport had set aside €1.6 million for spending on consultancy services, while the Department of Health and Children had estimated consultancy spending at €2 million. The Health Service Executive had earmarked an estimated €19.5 million for consultancy services in 2008.