Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be very quick, Chair. This question is for Mr. Martin from the CTTC, who gets the mid-west because he is a Limerick man. There are a lot of coach operators on the tourism route. This is more of a criticism of the NTA rather than of his members. The latest thing, certainly in the west, is that people board a coach on Aston Quay or Burgh Quay in Dublin and they come all the way down. The iconic sites like the Cliffs or Moher and Bunratty are now photo stops. People pull up at the side of the road and take a photo, they get their lunch in Kinvara in Galway and they go back for their dinner in Dublin. It is lovely for tourists. They pass beautiful fields of sheep and they take a photo of the Cliffs of Moher and they are gone again. These kinds of services are damn all use to us in a tourism county. It is no criticism of Mr. Martin's members. He represents them very well over many years. What I do ask is that if they are given an NTA route, they stick to it because some of them go further to get more photo opportunities. A photo opportunity might be good for Instagram but it does nothing for the tourism industry. All I ask is that members continue to come to all of the counties in the west but that they make worthwhile visits, like they always did in the past.