Mr. Paul Kelly:

There are a couple of realities of working in this sector that we cannot get away from. One is that tourism and hospitality does not exist from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday. It goes on on weekends and late nights and so people need to be served and looked after at that stage. An awful lot of roles in the sector - although not all - cannot be done remotely and workers are looking for the ability to work remotely or in a hybrid manner. With many of the roles in this sector, people need to be on-site to look after their guests and customers. The other thing is that the margins within which the businesses in this sector operate are incredibly tight and, generally speaking, far tighter than many other sectors, which means the amount available to pay people is also more challenged. Those are some of the challenges the industry faces. The only way to get over those challenges and attract workers in the long term is to have jobs that people love doing and a work environment that people love coming into. When we do research among people who work in the sector and people who want to work in it, the main driver is the passion for the job, the diversity of the job, looking after people and interacting with them. It is about that passion for the job and the love of it. That is the key thing. We need to make sure people can experience that and enjoy it, in the context of consistently brilliant employer practices. We have to get those great employer practices that are out there and just try to increase the consistency. It is more of a challenged when there are, as Ms De Saulles noted, lots of small employers that do not have the same kind of global best-practice big HR departments telling them how to apply the latest thinking around engagement with employees, etc. That is a challenge for those businesses. That is where industry associations and Fáilte Ireland can help educate those small businesses and bring that expertise to them. That is really the only way through that.