Mr. Tim Fenn:

What will happen in any such situation is that the hoteliers will try to do the best they can for their value proposition. Some of the costs increasing now will just have to be absorbed by the hoteliers. They cannot pass them on. The situation can be reached where some businesses that are marginal in respect of their profitability will get to a stage where they might not be viable anymore. That will be a challenge in some areas.

We are, though, trying to look to the positives. We are hoping, at some stage, that the price of oil will settle and that this rampant inflation will settle. We are hoping we will get to some form of calmer waters in future. The reality, however, is that we have come out of a pandemic that has been a disaster for our industry. We are in a situation now where there is a war in Europe and there are challenges globally on the supply side. This is in addition to the challenge I mentioned with rampant inflation. All those factors are disrupting everything going on now.

To speak to Mr. Kelly’s point, hotels are part of the infrastructure of the Irish economy. We are not just about tourism. The Irish economy has been progressing significantly despite the impact of Covid-19. There is massive demand in inward investment and in construction and all those industries use hotels. In parallel with that, we have a tourism industry that was asked to close. It was closed, more or less, for two years. When an industry such as this is closed, it is not possible just to turn it back on with a flick of a switch. What we are trying to explain today is that we have serious problems. We are not going to be able to fix them overnight, but we are doing the best we can. We want to speak to the fact there is still an industry out there providing stock that is, mostly, offered at competitive rates. It is comparable to our peers across Europe. There has been negative commentary about the last available rates. We are not here to defend that. We are not here to defend those rates.