Mr. Shaun Quinn:

I agree with the Deputy's opening comment about Dublin because one must compare like with like. In comparing capital cities, Dublin is still very good value. There is a balance to be struck. In order to sustain a business, it must be profitable.

In terms of the product, both Mr. Henry and I spoke earlier about how we are targeting consumers. It is a very interesting piece of work that is ongoing. We have gone out to the core markets to look at the key segments. There are three segments that seem to be resonating most with Ireland. One is a young segment which is looking for a city break, which is typically Dublin. It is a small enough segment called Social Energisers. Another segment is called Great Escapers, which is composed of people in their thirties with very young children who come here looking to get away from it all. This is typically a west of Ireland type route. The third segment is called the Culturally Curious, which is composed of older people who do not bring children with them, are better educated, have higher incomes and are looking to understand the heritage and culture of a destination. This plays into the south and east as well as the west coast to some extent.

When we carried out the analysis, we found that as a country, we do not score on family-type holidays. As a consequence of that research, the bulk of the money we have been investing has been in playing to what we call our core strengths. These include the natural heritage, which is the landscape and seascape. An example would the Wild Atlantic Way. Another core strength is the built heritage, which is synonymous with the south and east, Dublin and cultural heritage. That is where the money has been invested in the past number of years. When I talk about €120 million, we have invested in those areas we are known for and which people are interested in experiencing. We are not shutting our minds to other possibilities. We are currently looking at this window from here to 2020 - possibly a new capital programme. We would be very open to innovative ideas.

The key thing for us in looking at capital projects is that people can demonstrate that there is a market for it, the project will wash its face and they will not be coming back after a number of years looking for top-up State funding just to keep going because we cannot really have that. When one sees a market recovering like it currently is, one will see investors coming back into it. They know there is money to be made and that there may be some grant support. We are open to that. I do not think the weather is necessarily a limiting factor.