Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There is one aspect I want to address. The work of the Department and the Minister of State is very welcome in trying to address the issues such as Brexit. The Minister of State has more or less said that the drop-off would occur due to sterling and value for money and so on. I grew up at a time, 30 years ago, when we had huge UK business in the fishing in the lakelands of Roscommon, Leitrim and Cavan. I had a newsagents and it had a staple diet of tourism with fishermen who came from the United Kingdom. Even during the Troubles and the Border, it still made no huge impact and the tourists drank in the pubs and bought their papers and cigarettes and they were very welcome. That market has totally dried up, I believe partly because of value for money but there were also other markets opening up in Eastern Europe and various places. It is a market that we seem to have, effectively, forgotten about. Before I participated in politics I was involved in Lough Key Forest Park. We got €15 million for its development and it is one of the major tourist attractions. There is, however, a piece of infrastructure that is now missing.

The Wild Atlantic Way is terrific, as is Ireland's Ancient East. Our area does not have the infrastructure of a hotel. In any town this gives confidence and it attracts visitors and all the guest houses and restaurants work off that flagship. All of these types of hotels were built in other towns around the country - places that probably did not need them. We have a huge tourist attraction and the two hotels in the area are closed. It is the same in Castlerea and Ballaghaderreen. Nobody in their right mind will build a hotel unless they get some intervention. I have discussed this with the Minister for Finance. If we do not get this tourism infrastructure we will not have the potential. Is the Government prepared to put in investment - I will not call it a tax incentive - for maybe one hotel? People go away for a few days to Galway, Westport or Carrick-on-Shannon, which is wonderful and is in our area, but we cannot attract those people to the towns I spoke of earlier if we do not have that infrastructure.

What is happening is even worse that just not attracting the tourist. We have communions, christenings, weddings and even funerals having to leave those towns. We speak of investment, but we now need to look at the smaller tourist towns that missed out on that huge, serious infrastructure investment. What can been done by the Government in this regard and how does the Minister of State see the future for it? We are currently proposing an initiative called the scattered hotel where, for example, if there was a reception at King House, accommodation would be available through local property owners who would have used an incentive to do up a bedroom. We do need a serious incentive also. It does not need to be a five-star hotel but there are towns that are missing out on the great work being done by the Minister of State's Department - and he should take that as a huge compliment - but we would like to be part of that work. We have King House and the tourist towns, but if we do not have the infrastructure then we are in big trouble.