Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is fairness in what the Deputy has said, however some of the measurements that are included go in the direction of being very output focused. I draw the committee’s attention to section C of the Estimates and the issue of ports. It indicates the number of ports and seafarers to be inspected. If one looks at section D and sports it states that Sport Ireland legislation is to be published, and there are measures about the distribution of funding for local authority swimming pools. These are specific proposals. There is opportunity to make more progress on making them even more output focused on elements that are not related to legislation because legislation is binary in that it is either published or it is not, it is either enacted or it is not. However, we can track how many people come to Ireland, how they spend when they come here and the duration of their stay. This is the sort of data that Tourism Ireland tracks and upon which it reports back to my Department. It is in all of our interests that we include this data when one looks at how my Department and I perform.