Mr. Cian ? Lion?in:

Thoughts, yes, but immediate and quick answers, perhaps not. Covid has shown us the very significant value of the sector to the economy. We really understood that when it was gone. As I said earlier, it involves 260,000 people, reaching into every parish. At the moment, the way in which the Government engages with tourism is quite clear. The Department has a clear lead role in Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland and we deal with policy and funding. The wider hospitality sector is more diffuse and spreads across a number of Departments. For example, the Department of Justice deals with licensing, while local authorities deal with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Similarly, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Environment deals with work permits, a vital issue, while we work with marketing and tourism and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science deals with the issue of skills.

One of the positives of Covid was that all those Departments worked very well together and got a very good and consolidated view of how this sector is an entire ecosystem, with everything interlinked. There are long-term learnings from this. Earlier during the pandemic, the hospitality and tourism forum was established by the Tánaiste and the Minister at my Department. We and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment have worked closely. There are certainly long-term questions to be answered as to how best to build on that co-operation, and we have heard the sector repeatedly ask for clarity on who leads on hospitality. They are conversations we will have to reflect on and discuss with our Minister and Ministers throughout the system. In any event, we are certainly in a much better position, post pandemic and having worked so closely together, to come up with answers that might help the sector thrive into the future and determine that clear lead.