Mr. Tom O'Mahony:

The European Union does not have competence across all areas of policy and tourism policy is primarily left to national governments to deal with. There is no EU legislation in place on tourism, although legislation is in place which has a direct or indirect bearing on tourism. For instance, in the aviation area, we are examining issues surrounding air passenger rights, which would obviously be of practical relevance to anybody who travels by air. Tourism is a matter for national rather than European policy and national legislation where legislation is required. Having said that, given that we are the Department with responsibility for tourism, the fact that there is not a major EU dimension in this area did not limit the colossal effort that was put into revitalising the tourism industry in the past two years. As the Deputy will be aware from recently published statistics, this is one area where current efforts are working and the Department is extremely pleased with the success recorded in this area thanks to a number of policy initiatives, including the reduction in the VAT rate and, in particular, The Gathering. We still have some distance to travel if tourist numbers are to return to the levels we experienced five years ago but we are certainly moving in the right direction.