Ms Sarah Cronin-Falvey:

We had a chat with Fáilte Ireland almost three years ago - in February 2023 - where it talked to us about the registration system when it was all new. The organisation specifically told us on that call that as part of the registration system, there would be an option to tick a box to say you are using a clarification period of six months to get your house in order, for want of a better term. This would also give time for local authorities to have their guidelines in place and would give us all time to allow the tourism part to continue while we fall in line with this new legislation.

There has been a vacuum of information since then and in the latest conversations, that proposal of a six-month clarification period seems to have disappeared. We have had the floating of different ideas and proposals such as, for example, these towns of 10,000 or more, but again that seems to have disappeared from the more recent conversations. At various different tourism conferences lately, that seems to no longer be on the table. We are operating in a total vacuum.