Mr. Eoghan O'Mara Walsh:

I will not delay proceedings, but I will return to the point regarding seeing a full recovery. I have a similar view to the Senator. We will not see a full recovery for several years. This is largely because for the next year or two so much of our tourism accommodation stock will be unavailable. The one thing I would love members to take from this meeting is that the biggest issue facing Irish tourism is the impact on supply of how we are dealing with the humanitarian crisis. One of my major frustrations is that we have not yet seen a comprehensive plan from the Government as to how refugees and asylum seekers are going to be housed. The Taoiseach has said that approximately another 50,000 Ukrainian refugees are expected by the end of the year. Where will they stay?

At the moment, 32% of beds are out of the equation. Will that figure rise to 38% or 40%? It is only right and proper that we have a very warm and generous response to this crisis, but the tourism economy cannot be the primary accommodation provider for refugees and asylum seekers. If it is, there will be significant unintended economic consequences and the livelihoods of all those downstream tourism businesses we talked about will be at risk. We talked about losing our value proposition and doing long-term damage. If we lose our tourism assets, there will be long-term damage for our industry that will be very difficult to repair. Members need to be mindful of that. There is no magic wand and no quick fix, but we have yet to see a plan in this regard. As I said, the tourism and accommodation sector will play its part. It is only right that we do so. We cannot, however, be the primary accommodation provider because the knock-on implications are devastating for parts of our community.