Mr. Paul Gallagher:

With regard to the question on the role of public transport in tourism, the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation has conducted research, which is published for approximately two months. I am happy to furnish members with a copy. We have explored the role of public transport in tourism as something of an unknown. If one is standing in Killarney waiting for people to step off a train, it is probably quite evident that it is a tourist train but, beyond that, there is not really very much buy-in in the sense of determining the function.

Some of the recommendations in the report are on a centralised ticketing portal, particularly one that can be accessed overseas so people can plan their itinerary before they arrive here. It is envisaged to have ticketing across different platforms or modes of travel, which would be joined up. There was an exploration to address the necessity for tourists to keep returning to the hub in the east in order to proceed elsewhere. The east is the looped gateway all the time so if one goes from Dublin to Cork, one has to come back to Dublin to go to Galway. It is a matter, therefore, of finding better links to keep people in the regions rather than having them return to the hub of Dublin continually. There are many other recommendations. The report is pretty good.