Mr. Paul Kelly:

On the Deputy's point regarding chauffeurs, the Convention Centre, etc., business tourism is a very important part of the overall tourism economy. The business tourism that Fáilte Ireland, working with the business tourism working group, brings into the economy is worth €750 million per year. It involves conferences, corporate meetings, incentive trips and so on. It is the lifeblood of the chauffeur business, as well as the operations of many other self-employed workers and SMEs. It is also very important to large hotels, conference centres, etc. Business tourism operates with a very long lead time. We are bidding for conferences and incentive trips to come to Ireland every year from 2021 to 2029. It is not just located in Dublin because a significant amount of incentive business happens in the south west and the west, as well as conferences in counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Galway and so on.

We do not yet have a roadmap for reopening those businesses and that sector. That is costing us money. For example, there are the social distancing issues to which the Deputy referred in the context of the number of people the Convention Centre is currently allowed to hold. We need to work with the public health and other officials to get that roadmap in place because the bids are still happening internationally. The spend of €750 million per year works out at €15 million per week. We are missing out on that as other countries are now bidding for those conferences but we are unable to take part because we do not have a roadmap in place. We need to address that as a matter of urgency in order that we can have that future pipeline of business.

We recognise that bed and breakfast accommodation, tour guides, chauffeurs and others in the self-employed sector of the tourism and hospitality industry have not benefited from measures such as the PUP and the wage subsidy scheme in the same way as those in some other sectors. We are very conscious of that and have discussed at the tourism recovery task force the need for support of those sectors and individuals.