Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our two guests to the meeting. It is most important that communities be kept alive, not only for the communities themselves but also from the point of view of tourism, and I think the witnesses touched on that. It is very important that services be kept going. If we do not have services in communities, we will not have any tourism business in those communities either because they are the life and soul in bringing tourism to rural communities. Tourism can provide services to communities, whether restaurants, bars or whatever else.

My second point concerns the Atlantic corridor. If people have ideas they want to progress, where do they go and how do they go about it? The idea could cross several Departments, but who pulls the whole thing together? Do people who have ideas go to Enterprise Ireland or the Western Development Commission? Do they have to keep going around to them all? How do they find out what they need to find out? Where do they get all the assistance from? Where would their first port of call be?