Over €650,000 spent on newspapers

Government employees must rank as Irish newspapers' most avid readers, with the various departments spending over €650,000 on papers in 2005. According to the figures released, the Irish Times is by far the most popular daily for civil servants, with Government departments spending over €150,000 on this title alone in 2005.

Roughly half as much (€75,000) is spent on the Irish Independent as the Irish Times. The national status of the Irish Examiner does not to have been fully accepted by the civil service, since most departments spent less than €37,000 on it on an annual basis.

The department that spent most on newspapers last year was Education, with €85,788 spent on dailies, which are distributed to staff. Justice was a close second at €83,303, while Defence was the lowest spender with only €9,332.73 spent on newspapers last year.

Across departments, the least read Dublin-based Irish daily – not including the Irish Daily Mail, only a recent entry to the market – was the Irish Sun. Only the Department of Foreign Affairs admitted spending just over €1,000 on this title last year.

Sales of the Belfast-based Daily Ireland hardly registered, with no department disclosing a spend of over €500 on it. This was well below the amounts spent on the Newsletter, Belfast Telegraph or Irish News.

The department of Finance disclosed its full spending on British-based dailies a well. Finance spent only €208 on the London Times last year, well below that spent on the Financial Times (€15,420), Independent (€241), Guardian (€350) and the Wall Street Journal (€702) or Le Monde (€530).

Scott Millar