Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

An application has been received and is being considered by Fáilte Ireland. Many of the festivals and events that took place last year will take place this year. One of the real successes of The Gathering was the fact that quite a number of local authorities around the country, including Clare, really embraced it. We would not like to lose that so we are trying to put something together that would allow us to continue to fund small local events and festivals that worked for The Gathering. We do not know yet. The big worry about The Gathering was always that we might have a dip the following year because it brought events forward. There is some evidence of that on the conference side but so far, it is looking okay for this year. The tour operators and hoteliers all say it is looking very positive and the airlines just keep adding capacity. I am getting a bit worried that some of the flights will not work because there are so many additional ones. There are nearly 80% more seats from Canada this year than there were last year and there are about 10% more from the US. In the past week, both Emirates and Etihad pretty much doubled their capacity. We have moved from the stage where we were trying to get the airlines to put on more routes to the stage where we are trying to make sure the ones they have put on actually work.

In respect of damage to tourist facilities, there was some damage along the Wild Atlantic Way. A distinction is made between publicly and privately owned facilities but we may be able to help repair the publicly owned ones. Some will be insured. Most of the privately owned ones and even some of the publicly owned ones would be insured.