Mr. Pat Dawson:

I thank the Senator for his questions. As far as Irish travel agents are concerned, we are in a desperate situation. As the Senator said, we are getting both sides of it from everywhere. We have awful issues with refunds. We are owed about €20 million or €25 million, and it is the consumer who is owed that money.

As for where we go from here, travel needs certainty and we certainly have no certainty whatsoever. We had the green list and there were four countries on it, two of which have no airports. Then we suddenly opened up to ten and 12 countries and there was silence about that. We felt that the Government was not interested in pursuing the green list. Otherwise, it would have spoken about the ten or 12 countries that were to open up. Now we have to agree with our European counterparts that we are all on the same page and the same colour. We do not want a patchwork situation. Airlines have complained this morning about different countries being green, orange or whatever. The travelling public need certainty, but we do not have that at present. I ask Mr. Hackett to address our views on the budget.