Ms Carol Coad:

How it started in Wicklow is that we had this tidal wave of outdoor recreation activity 20 years ago that the rest of the country has been experiencing since Covid. When we look at the details, such as surveys, Mountaineering Ireland conducted a recent survey that found that 78% of people who recreate outdoors do so in County Wicklow.

We have had this influx of people, in our county and coming to our county, for so long that 15 years ago it was bananas. We had an insightful director of services looking after amenity in Wicklow County Council who said, "Coillte are doing their thing. The park are doing their thing. We have people ringing us and complaining. We need to sit down around a table and figure this out." That is how the outdoor recreation committee started, very much as an information-sharing group. Most of the members are still there. At that point in time I worked for Coillte; now I do not. Most of those people are still around that table so it is a long relationship. There is a lot of trust. There is a lot of depth of understanding and information sharing that we have had over those years. That is how it began.

Then we moved into an area where, with the Wicklow Way being spread over loads of different landowners, we asked how that gets managed. The Wicklow Way management group, which, I am sure, Mr. Byrne will talk about, came out of that outdoor recreation committee and that helped us to secure a bit of funding to upgrade the Wicklow Way and fix signage and that kind of stuff.

Do we see it as an economic driver? We do 100%. The car traffic passing through Laragh village on a bank holiday weekend Saturday has been measured at 45,000 cars. Laragh has a pub, a shop, a little café and a restaurant. Why are 45,000 people coming there? They are going to Glendalough because that is what they know or they are going hillwalking because it is a hub. Absolutely, there is an economic benefit to be gained from that. We have not unlocked that to the extent that we would like to but we do a lot of work with businesses, both on the ground and in the community, to try and help them to innovate to understand what these day-trippers want, how do we get them to go for their walk and how do we provide them with something they want to pay for in our local community. We are working hard on that. We have not unlocked it to the extent we would like to.