Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

It absolutely is. As the new Minister, my priorities are very different from those of my predecessors. We are in Asia now. We are in the UAE. There are more flights coming from China. We are working on expanding the European market, where we have been under significant pressure. I am always data driven in policy decisions; we must have evidence for them. One of the key concerns in European markets was about food but when people come here, more than 80% of them are really excited by the food offering we have. That tells me we have to get that message out there to grow that base.

North America will continue to be a strong market. We have just come back from there. We have two super Irish-based tourism companies that have gone into the Canadian market and are bringing visitors over here. There is a lot of opportunity there still and we are working to grow market share. When I went out to Japan, I saw Tourism Ireland did not have a stand at Expo 2025. All of that is changing. I assure the Deputy of that. We are putting boots on the ground in these new markets, from which we stepped back over the past number of years. There is a very different stewardship. I can assure the Deputy of that.