Mr. Michael Cawley:

Of course. The Acting Chairman was right about the co-operative spirit that we must cultivate. I am a firm believer in the fact that no one has a monopoly on wisdom. I will seek ideas from the bottom up. As I told Deputies Griffin and O'Donovan, The Gathering gave us a tremendous template for success. Those at the top were surprised by how responsive people at the grassroots were. I want to harness that, as does Fáilte Ireland. This is for practical reasons, as we have neither the budget nor a monopoly on wisdom. We do not have all of the good ideas, although we have some, and we certainly have expertise.

The best ideas, particularly those that work locally, are those that come from local sources. They own those ideas and make them a success. I am a firm believer in that concept. We will not be able to respond positively to every idea, but we hope to give everyone a fair say. I will then rely on the expertise of people in Fáilte Ireland to make decisions. I should say that I have only met the chief executive twice, but I have been impressed by him. I have also been left impressed by my dealings with Fáilte Ireland, although I was mainly dealing with Tourism Ireland in my previous job. I am set to meet the rest of Fáilte Ireland's management later this week. Its members have skill sets and have proven themselves.

The committee members can rest assured that any gap in the market, particularly where we need to communicate with customers, will be addressed. There is an imperative to reduce staff numbers to certain levels under Government guidelines. Within that, however, I hope to protect the key skill sets, as the Acting Chairman called them, that we need and embellish them in due course with more people who are relevant to the market. I come from an organisation that went through this type of change recently. The world is competitive, but Ireland can do well if we have the ideas and the skills to communicate same. That is where Fáilte Ireland comes in, namely, the packaging of Ireland.

I have yet to examine the organisation. The Acting Chairman asked a detailed question on that matter, but I would rather reserve my position. Having seen Fáilte Ireland's performance, I rank it highly thus far. There is nothing that cannot be improved upon, of course, as there would be no sense in my job if that were the case, but the Acting Chairman can rest assured that whatever needs to be done to achieve the objectives I laid out will be done. I am keen to achieve the numbers that have been mentioned and to ensure the increase is spread regionally.

The people in Ireland West Airport Knock are among my best friends in the airport business, if I have any left. Mr. Joe Gilmore and Mr. Donal Healy run a tight ship and do a fantastic job on behalf of the west. I would not want the Acting Chairman to lose sight of the importance of Derry Airport to the northern part of his region. That airport also operates under tight constraints, including financial ones, but it succeeds in overcoming them most of the time and brings many people to that part of the world. Donegal is much more the airport's hinterland than anything to its east.

The issue of fracking is way outside my area of competence. The Acting Chairman is right in that people will not visit old industrial sites. There are some who take an interest in such places, but I suspect very few. We have to combine the economy's various competing interests. I am not one to say what should or should not be done in the area, but Ireland has a fine infrastructure. One would need to travel a long way to find something to better it. We will give the highest priority to marketing it in the most attractive way.

I will make a particular point, as I have personal experience in this regard. International access to the regions - I would not like to characterise it as bypassing Dublin, but that is effectively what it is - is very important. On foot of the Government's abolition of the aviation tax, I was happy to announce up to 400,000 more passengers between Shannon and Knock airports in the past 12 months over the previous 12 months. This work will not stop there, as I hope to promote it further. Let us hope that many of those passengers migrate to Leitrim, Cavan and so on. I am sure they will.