Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Yes, things like that, as they manifest themselves at local level. I wish to reiterate the whole point about local tertiary roads. While it would take a normal budget allocation to maintain them to the level they should be at, it would take an additional amount of money to restore them to their level before the onset of the aforementioned inclement weather conditions.

The other issue is in respect of tourism and marketing and every penny spent by the Department over the past seven or eight years has been money well spent. There have been quarterly, biannual and annual figures and the tourism spend is increasing. In itself, that has driven the coastal social economies nationwide and this has been significant in terms of services, tourism, marinas and so on. It permeates into many areas and creates sustainable jobs in areas such as the area from which I come. Moreover, the development of tourism initiatives such as the Wild Atlantic Way has been outstanding. The Minister of State, Deputy Ring, visited the Old Head of Kinsale recently, where he plastered part of the wall that forms part of the Old Head Signal Tower restoration programme. It is money well spent to think that based on this initiative, there now is a product that will take someone to County Donegal and then bring him or her to the Old Head of Kinsale. This is so much the case that people who have nothing at all to do with the Wild Atlantic Way by geographic definition now wish to link into it and I wish the Minister luck in trying to find a solution to their desires.

My next point coincides with the trip by President Higgins to China, which is an absolutely huge market. There is a centre for Chinese studies in University College Cork and there is a strong Chinese population there but developing the tourism links between Ireland and China will have a huge return. This will be evident in respect of the figures and the Minister could use as an example the restoration of the American market, as well as of the domestic market between here and the United Kingdom. It was a critical challenge to bring back the latter because they also suffered as a result of the collapse and the sort of short weekend trips which people from the United Kingdom would take to visit here almost stopped. Developing and using the same strategies that were deployed to resurrect those two markets would stand to the Minister and his Department in the context of winning a crucial tourism market from China. I refer to the additional expenditure of approximately €800,000 in marketing campaigns to coincide with that trip, which is commanding huge coverage in China, not to mind the significant element of coverage here. How much of that expenditure will be spent in 2014 and will any of it go into the start of 2015? Allied to that, in respect of the State visits the President undoubtedly will make in 2015, will there be allocations of funding? Will consideration be given for additional funding for those trips because the return would be absolutely huge and every penny spent in that regard would be spent well?