James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Brennan is right in what he has identified. The town of Youghal lost 70% of its tourist accommodation on the stroke of Roderic O'Gorman's pen with the sale of the Quality Hotel, which is now one of the largest IPAS centres in the country.

There was no consultation. As a TD in the constituency, there was no opportunity to have any input into that. Now, there is no plan for the future of the town as an accommodation centre. I was down recently at a Youghal Chamber breakfast event that took place last week and with the Youghal Socio-Economic Development Group. These are very pertinent issues. There needs to be dialogue with the Department on its tourism remit around towns that have been established as tourist towns by local authorities. Some focus needs to be put in the future of tourist accommodation. Dare I mention the changes in the short-term letting situation and the impact this could have on tourism. It is a concern. Maybe at a more appropriate opportunity in January we will have the chance to discuss that issue. As the Minister knows, we have been doing a lot of scrutiny in relation to that matter. It could do a lot of harm to tourist towns as well and there is huge concern.

Referring back to the jobs and enterprise development programme in the Department, which is part of the matter being discussed at today’s meeting, I once again want to refer to the importance of Ireland’s global footprint in Asia and the Middle East region. I will briefly mention that of the four Gulf states, I believe we only have an embassy in one. We can see the pace of economic growth in that region of the world. Even if we look at the connections, there are five daily flights leaving Dublin Airport every day to the Gulf. I know that is a lot of transit traffic to other regions but the area is very quickly developing into an economic powerhouse of countries that have populations of comparable sizes to Ireland. Is there a mismatch concerning where our future is going to be in relation to the development of economic policy and the overconcentration on US investment in Ireland? The only reason I am raising this issue is that I feel that corporation tax to a certain extent is reminiscent of stamp duty in 2006 and 2007 in Ireland. We thought that was a never-ending bonanza. I know it is a much more stable foundation on the back of the Minister's Department's legacy and work, which has been extraordinary in terms of what we have succeeded in doing in Ireland, and the good work of the Minister and his predecessors, but is there an argument that this is now a very dangerous bubble? With things like AI and the increase in global conflicts, have we exposed ourselves to an enormous risk? Should we do something to, essentially, almost de-risk from that level of concentration on one country?