Mr. Jerome Casey:

I will begin with a well-known triplet from Robert Frost, the US poet:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

For our purposes today the "I" is Daniel Morrissey, who was the Minister for Industry and Commerce in the inter-party Government from 1948 to 1951. He successfully established the IDA in 1949 on a road less travelled as it was not the usual thing to do at the time. In February 1951 he sent a memorandum to Government on the tourist industry which recommended a Department of tourism focused on policy, with the notion - heretical to the Department of Finance - of multi-annual funding; a single national tourism organisation; and independent local tourism bodies with responsibility for local tourism development and promotion. The mother and child scheme caused the Government to fall and Seán Lemass was the incoming Minister for Industry and Commerce. He did not agree with Daniel Morrissey and appointed an old civil war friend of his to Fógra Fáilte, so we then had two tourism promotion and development bodies. Later in the 1960s, Bord Fáilte established regional bodies as opposed to local bodies. These were established as subsidiaries and were gradually amalgamated into the centre, the last being Dublin Tourism approximately three years ago.

Ireland has two tourism promotion and development agencies, which is unique and against best practice in developed countries. Ireland has no structure of independent local tourism organisations, which is also against best international practice. By following Morrissey's vision and taking a road less travelled at the time, Ireland now enjoys one of the best industrial promotion agencies in the world. By not following Morrissey's advice we are faced with one of the worst performing tourism promotion agencies in the world. The documentation distributed to committee members has most of the headlines. Tourism peaked in 2007 and fell by 30%. In pure tourism numbers this was a decrease from 4 million in 2007 to 2.8 million, with a recovery this year with The Gathering to approximately 3 million. The numbers are still down approximately one quarter. Meanwhile international tourism has risen by approximately 20% so our market share has continued to fall heavily.

Promotion by Tourism Ireland is costly and, in my opinion, ineffective. A large World Tourism Organization study took place in 2009 which examined tourism spend by Government per arriving tourist. Ireland was the highest in Europe with 16 times the spend of Italy, eight times that of France and more than four times that of Britain. We recommend Tourism Ireland's budget for advertising promotion should be cut by up to €15 million and its promotional expenditure should be concentrated on social media, about which the previous speaker spoke so eloquently.

One reason Ireland's tourism promotion is expensive is whatever about the efficacy of tourism promotion spending, we do not get return tourists at the same rate. Our return tourism rate of 35% of visitors is one of the lowest in Europe. I have heard some people in the tourism industry state return figures are high in sunny countries such as Italy or France at 82%, but it is 83% in the Lake District where people go for rain and walking. There is no reason it should be as low as 35% here. It is 66% in Scotland. If we had the same level we would have twice as many tourists for the same amount of expenditure. We must examine this. Fáilte Ireland's 2011 annual report states 99% of overseas holidaymakers' expectations were met or exceeded in 2011. To make the claim 99% of anything is reached is too much, but it certainly is not the case in terms of people returning to Ireland that they are satisfied with their tourism experience. There is something gravely wrong.

In Ireland attractions and local tourism offices are staffed by full-time employees but in Scotland 43% of staff at attractions are volunteers and a further 33% are part time. Less than one quarter are full-time employees. This means a very low cost base for opening tourist attractions in rural counties in Scotland which are similar to Mayo here. When it was examined three years ago, Scotland had 298 attractions with 10,000 or more visitors, whereas Ireland had half that number at 148. There is an absolute necessity to involve local action in promoting tourism to improve the tourist experience and reduce the costs of providing it.

We also examined other benchmark tourist areas such as Amsterdam, which has 7 million tourists a year. The average employee cost in Amsterdam tourism in 2009 was €35,000. In Fáilte Ireland it was €65,000, which is twice the industrial wage. The 2011 annual report stated the salary of the CEO of Fáilte Ireland was €168,379 but an equal amount was paid in pension to the CEO to allow him retire at the age of 55. I am not sure how this increased tourism numbers or tourism revenue.

Our recommendations for tourism are based partly on Morrissey's vision but mainly on best practice elsewhere. We call for a single national tourism organisation for tourism promotion and development. Tourism Ireland's advertising budget should be cut by up to €15 million and Fáilte Ireland should be abolished as unfit for purpose. Local tourism organisations should be encouraged and part funded to establish local tourism promotion and development. Perhaps we can discuss this later. When we examined Dublin two and a half years ago, sovereign poverty meant the only way we could introduce new products was to take public buildings in use, such as Dublin Castle, and turn them to tourist use. The problem with this is Dublin Castle is occupied by the Revenue Commissioners and the Garda Síochána, which are big beasts that have been there since the 12th century and will not willingly move because a Minister wants them to do so. We have a special request to the committee to examine and perhaps recommend our proposal in this regard to co-ordinate the implementation of tourism policy. We suggest a tourism development group to help this implementation process which would be chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach. This would be similar to the Clearing House Group for the IFSC which was established successfully eight or nine years ago.