James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I confirm that I am in the Leinster House complex. I thank Mr. Dawson and Mr. Hackett for their presentation to the committee. I have an observation to make on what has been going on here in recent months that has very much damaged the entire industry - travel agents, international travel, aviation and all of the jobs in tourism that stem from that. I refer to the attitude taken by some to international travel. Something I hear from a lot of people working in tourism in Ireland is that they are very worried about the current level of public confidence in international travel. That is something I have spoken about in this committee previously and it is an issue that the Oireachtas as a whole needs to address. Thankfully, we are heading for a situation whereby at the end of June 80% of the Irish population are expected to receive either their first dose or to be fully vaccinated. That should very much put us on a springboard to allow people to start international travel for inbound travellers into Ireland, which is obviously fantastic for hotels in this country, and for travel in general but also to allow Irish citizens to travel abroad.

The witnesses have identified two very significant issues in their contributions today and I wish to pick up on them. One is the fact that Ireland was part of the common travel area with the United Kingdom, in the sense that we had an existing arrangement prior to Brexit and that we are not part of the Schengen Agreement, which is ploughing ahead with its own plans for international travel. I want to utilise my time in the committee today to say, as a Fianna Fáil Deputy and its spokesperson on transport, how important it is that we would follow suit with the Schengen plan and work with the countries in the Schengen area to allow Irish travellers to go to the United States once we have reached a satisfactory level of vaccination of the population. We are getting there very quickly. There is no doubt that we are making progress. We all know it was difficult and slow to start but, thankfully, it is now progressing. Reopening the US-Ireland travel channel is incredibly important for the travel industry. To put it into perspective, I spoke to one hotelier yesterday who told me that 65% of his bookings in a luxury 5 star hotel on the west coast comprised travellers coming into Ireland from the United States, and 75% of his revenue was as a result of bookings from the United States. That just shows the level of importance it has for the economy. If we want people coming in, we need to let people go out as well, which is important. I know a lot of people give out that it is money exiting the economy, but travel agents in Ireland are doing well out of it and domestic airlines do well from international travel and business as well as people working in Irish airports. That must all be stated.

The Chairman asked a question earlier about where the calls need to go. It is obvious that NPHET must be involved. From my reading of the situation, NPHET is the one causing the difficulties for the witnesses. In fairness, I think at a ministerial level many of the Departments want to see travel open up again. I heard off the record from many different Ministers and people working in Departments that they want to see antigen testing being put in place and they want to see movement in that regard following on from the academic reports that have been done, but the issue seems to be NPHET. That is my reading of the situation. To do some justice to everybody who has come before the committee, perhaps it is time for us to look for NPHET to come before the committee again. It obliged us before and it is high time that we would bring it back again. I will ask one question and finish up then.