Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Quickly, on the tourism oversight group, that is set up to oversee the recommendations from that sector. It is not a representative group but, rather, it is made up of an independent chairperson and eight other members with a broad spectrum of backgrounds who were selected on the basis of each person's capacity to bring their knowledge, skills, experience, competence, capability and strategic leadership to the ideas of this working group. It is overseeing the implementation of the recommendations. The groups that the Senator mentioned are on the hospitality and tourism forum, which meets the Tánaiste and me regularly. It includes representatives from the Irish Hotels Federation, the Restaurants Association of Ireland, Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Ireland, the Vintners Federation of Ireland, the Licensed Vintners Association etc., to name but a few. They will be meeting me and the Tánaiste again this month. At the previous meeting, the Taoiseach met them as well.

In relation to the stay-and-spend scheme, that was set up last summer by my colleague, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe. Of course, it was to target that off-peak season. However, public health conditions beyond our control clearly prevented the success of this scheme. That stop-and-start nature of the pandemic and unpredictable consequences have resulted in the scheme being completely underutilised. A review of the stay-and-spend scheme is one of the recommendations of the tourism recovery oversight group and I have urged Cabinet colleagues to look at that. I am in favour of a scheme that would provide a boost to the industry in that off-peak season. Once the scheme ends at the end of this month, it is anticipated that my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, will take stock and look at what supports would be best suited to the tourism sector to be put in place for that off-peak season again.