Anthony Lawlor (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome the Minister of State. He is a credit to his Department. I have been in embassies around the world where he has spoken, and officials speak highly of his knowledge of the industry and his enthusiasm for ensuring it becomes sustainable. Sustainability is about how we progress the industry into the future. We cannot always benefit from events that took place in the past. The Wild Atlantic Way was a Fine Gael initiative, which has been successful and other initiatives have flown from it. We speak of sustainability, but this has given communities access to tourists who would never have called otherwise, as they had always been bypassed. Tourists now go there regularly. One problem in Kildare is that we have two of the best motorways in the country, the N7 and N4. Everyone who stays in Dublin then rushes through Kildare. Over the years we have found people and buses passing through the county to be a problem.In fairness to the sector in Kildare, the people concerned have worked extremely hard to gather some of the tourism money that has been coming into the country regularly. I acknowledge the amount of work that has been done in the racing sector in Kildare and what the industry has done across the world in bringing people to Punchestown, Naas or the recently redeveloped Curragh. I also recognise that the food sector in Kildare has dramatically improved. There have been a number of events. I recently attended the Naas Wild Food Festival, which started some years ago as a small local initiative and which has now become more national. I am grateful for the funding provided by Tourism Ireland and the food section within Tourism Ireland in that regard. It recognises that Ireland has quality produce.

I acknowledge also the structures that have been put in place in the various Irish embassies around the world. Tourism Ireland is associated with many of these embassies and I met some of the personnel in my travels. It was great to see the enthusiasm about bringing people into Ireland. We must not forget that the Irish person who goes from Kildare to Kerry or from Kildare to Galway also is a tourist. This is an important sector. I welcome that there are more hotels offering more over 55s packages. Those people involved in active retirement groups are making their presence felt in many of these hotels, bed and breakfast accommodations and guest houses around the country. This is happening during times of the year when there may not be the normal influx of tourists coming through.

I wish to discuss with the Minister the constrictions within the sector. Senator Mark Daly has already spoken on one of the issues, which is the difficulty of getting staff. While some people might say it is on the pay side of things, the growing economy can make it more difficult to get Irish people to work in the sector because they see other avenues open to them. I am grateful to be able to say there are more young people actively getting involved in the tourism sector. The catering college in Shannon is always oversubscribed and it brings forward high-quality staff. There is, however, an issue with regard to work permits and especially the difficulty for people outside the EU in getting work permits. I refer in particular to a certain area in the culinary sector, namely, wok chefs. There are no courses available in Ireland to train up wok chefs. These are specialist chefs who come in from eastern Asia and such places. The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation has a difficulty in giving work permits to these people. Perhaps the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, could communicate the problems associated with that.

I now turn to the greenways, the development of which is one of the greatest initiatives to have come from Fine Gael over the years.