Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I thank the witnesses for being at our meeting today and for the opening statement . There are quite a few points to get through so I might go quickly into them. I recently tabled a number of parliamentary questions and wrote to the NTA and the Minister for Transport on this. When coach operators apply for licensing, the NTA, in my opinion, looks at this in a very one-dimensional way. The NTA either approves or disapproves their application. There is a cohort of coach operators that are driving for tourism purposes, not A to B transit. They board buses on the quays of Dublin in the morning, they bring the tourists to the west of Ireland for the west of Ireland experience and they bus them back in the evening. There is no overnight in hotels and there are one or two stops along the way. Some of the iconic tourism sites in the west are now dubbed "photo stops" along the way. It is hollowing out tourism. I make the point that the NTA licensing at the moment is one-dimensional. It is yea or nay, approve or disapprove, but there has to be an extra metric. Other countries are doing it. They are ensuring that when tourism coaches go to the other side the country, they will overnight or slow down or they will not be on this crazy schedule that requires them to be from Burgh Quay, to the Cliffs of Moher, to Rossaveal, and back again at 5 p.m. They are putting pressure on the roads. They are making the place dangerous. They are not giving the tourists the experience of Ireland we want. These iconic sites are just photo stops where everyone bundles out, takes the snap for Instagram and moves on again. Unwittingly, the NTA is complicit in this. The Minister and the NTA need to look at this and say we are not going to accept this quick-fire tourism that starts in Dublin and then goes back to Dublin, with no money being spent in the west. It is putting severe pressure on communities. Will the NTA respond to that, please?