Mr. William Martin:

For a few years, we ran a company based in Limerick going to the Cliffs of Moher and all that, doing a tour and picking people up at hotels in Limerick city and Ennis. We got good support but we found that once the motorway opened from Dublin, while we used to collect a lot of people off the train, that evaporated almost immediately when people discovered they could do the trip from Dublin on those coaches. I do not know whether it was something we needed to do in the mid-west or that the day tour people are of a different socioeconomic background. I take the point that there is no economic advantage from these people when they travel on day tours. It is economics - supply and demand. There is huge demand for that from Dublin. The demographic is perhaps students. There are older people but a lot are aged up to late 20s - that is the predominant group. At the moment, there are accommodation issues in County Clare but that is more on the extended tour side, for example, Lisdoonvarna is almost closed. Thankfully, the hotels in Ennis and in Limerick city are still open. Some, luckily, have taken the policy of helping the Ukrainian situation but keeping their doors open to the public.