Mr. Se?n Connick:

I was speaking with Ms Flanagan before we came into the committee room. We were making a point about the TBESS as we were having a conversation among ourselves outside. We had ESB bills for the back end of last year in November and December, and then in January and February. They increased by approximately €15,000 for a small project. When we applied for the TBESS, we got a refund of approximately €3,600. We still have to find money this year to cover the increase of approximately €11,400. We will have to generate this extra cash to cover the down period of November, December, January and February. It is therefore very challenging at the moment.

Many of the attractions are still in recovery mode. Last year, many of the rural attractions hit approximately 67% or 70% of their 2019 performance. This year, we will be targeting 75% or 80%. In real terms, if people are down by 30% of 100,000 visitors, that will be 30,000 visitors. At an average of €10 per head, that will result in the project being down by €300,000 in income revenue. The visitor contribution goes straight to the bottom line, to the finance and the operational profits, or not as the case may be. It is therefore a challenging time for us and we must be mindful of that as we head into the back end of the 2023 season. I say this because we came out of Covid-19 and we were very appreciative of all the grants we got, but we are still facing all the challenges from the inflationary costs. We are running on tight margins, as are restaurants. It is probably the same case for buses, given the price of diesel. We are running on very tight margins. It is still not a rosy picture. It is a picture, but it is not a rosy picture. It is possible that there may be a requirement for some other business continuity grant at the back end of the year, or some sort of intervention. We may have to call on the various Departments to assist us with these.