Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the representatives from both industries for coming here today. I also thank them for the work that they do because although Ireland depends a lot on export-driven industries, the tourism industry is enormously important. It is up to the representatives here today to attract people to the country, make sure they are satisfied and also to ensure that they come back.

Obviously when people come to Ireland they want to eat nice food in hotels, restaurants and pubs. However, there is an emerging food tourism industry outside of that. There is a lot of talk about the Wild Atlantic Way, for example, and in County Meath we have the Boyne Valley region and surrounding areas and are seeing the emergence of a fantastic food tourism industry. We had our first Taste of Meath festival this year. Ms Olivia Duff, a member of the Irish Hotels Federation, was responsible for organising the Meath Food Trail which attracted both locals and tourists. Is there a plan in place to work with the food industry more generally? How do the witnesses see that developing?

We would all agree that the 9% VAT rate has worked well. It was introduced to encourage hotels to provide value for money. How does the industry actually monitor that? If a hotel decides to go off on its own and not stick to that rate, how is that dealt with? The lower rate was retained this year but for how much longer will it be needed? I am sure the representatives will argue that it should be maintained at that level forever but realistically, how much longer is it needed in order to get the industry to where it needs to be?

Throughout the Celtic tiger era we went mad building hotels in the middle of nowhere. Many of them are now derelict and idle. Do the witnesses believe they should just be knocked down now or do they think there is a possibility of reopening them? On the issue of promotional work, while the figures are very encouraging, what are the plans of the representative organisations for next year, both at home and abroad? If I went to New York, would I see promotional campaigns there? Are the organisations focusing on particular counties or regions, are they focusing on particular sporting events, concerts and so forth?

On the issue of small rural pubs, I have some personal experience in that my parents ran a small pub for ten years and I fully support the idea of a forum. I have been that person dropping people home at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., making a number of runs. I saw the decline in the industry over the ten years during which my family had the pub. I would welcome the reversal of the decision regarding excise duty but I think we need to work together on the issue of alcohol misuse. As a Government we have failed in that regard. The Drink Aware campaign is led by the drinks industry and I believe that it is the duty of the Government to promote sensible drinking. We should be doing more work in that area. A forum would be hugely beneficial to the industry and I would be very supportive of it.