Mr. Peter Hynes:

I thank the joint committee for its invitation; it is an honour and a privilege to be here. I am the Mayo county manager and my colleague, Ms Grehan, has a dual role. She is chief executive of the Mayo County Enterprise Board and head of our enterprise and investment unit. We will explain how they operate together.

We will speak about future tourism policy from a Mayo perspective. Members know where it is, but I remind them that it is a big county, with a population of 130,000 in an area of 5,500 sq. km approximately. It has a very extensive coastline of close to 2,000 km. We sometimes joke that, just as people in certain parts of the country think and talk about declaring independence, we have a map that shows the continental shelf under our economic control. We would take that chunk, complete with all of the oil and gas within it.

By way of context and to understand from where the tourism industry in County Mayo comes one needs to understand the place. It is a combination of heritage, people and physical place. Its heritage dates back 5,000 years. Most people have heard of the Céide Fields. There is a long tradition of religious pilgrimage, in respect of which Croke Patrick is one of the centres. The other main factor is depopulation since 1841 when the population dropped by 70%. Thankfully, it is on the way back up, but there is still a feeling, which is a strength, that a lot of people all over the globe have left a vacancy to be filled back at base. The landscape is diverse and beautiful, with history etched on every field.

When I talk about County Mayo, I use four words in terms of our vision – sustainable, inclusive, prosperous and proud. Tourism is part of all of this. Last year in the west we had 2.3 million visitors. In County Mayo there were just short of 250,000. The 2012 figures show that the tourism industry brought in €67 million and supported 2,300 jobs. Tourism is extremely important to us. The tourism industry is driven by a sense of place, ownership in the community and providing an experience that is unique for visitors. Key attractions include Ballintubber Abbey, the Foxford woollen mills, our 12 Blue Flag beaches and the National Museum of Irish Country Life in Turlough House, one of the few national institutions located outside The Pale and one of the most successful.

Westport is among the flagship areas. It has been transformed since the 1970s to what we see today by a combination of local authority leadership and community engagement. The Greenway is one of the success stories that has been transformed by the voluntary contribution of landowners led by the local authority. The slide shows the change that has taken place. It has become a framework for a lot of other things, including food and adventure tourism. The Gathering has been a demonstration of community power. Last year, to harness all of this, we set up an enterprise and investment unit in the local authority, which pulls together all of our efforts in that area. Tourism is one area of endeavour.

I wish to hand over to my colleague, Ms Grehan, who is head of the enterprise and investment unit.