Mr. Tim Fenn:

I have a few points to make on hotel rates in Dublin. In 2015, Dublin had an average occupancy rate of 82.2%, which was the highest in Europe along with London. At that stage, the average room rate was €112 on aggregate right across the year, which was the 15th highest city in Europe. In 2016, it was 82.5% and, on its own, the highest occupied city in Europe. It was 11th highest in average room rates. Dublin is a very competitive city internationally. Where Dublin has a problem is in its capacity. There are currently approximately 3,000 to 5,000 rooms at the planning stage or in the process of being built which represents investment of somewhere in the order of €1 billion. That will go a long way towards dealing with the issue raised about big events.

When one talks about big events in Dublin, one is talking about a capacity issue, rather than some of the other words the Deputy used. It is an issue but in relation to pricing in Dublin there are only 25 to 30 days in the year where the last available room rate reaches the average rate. I ask the members to think about that. There is lots of good value in Dublin for the people coming here. They book their rooms in advance, they get here and they are fine. Many of the business people who were referred to have corporate rates and they are not subject to the last available room rate which is the rate that is caught when there are major events. When one is talking about a major event, one is also talking possibly about the last 2% to 5% of rooms. There are approximately 19,000 rooms in Dublin, of which approximately 18,500 are sold at great rates. It is the last few rooms as with a flight or some other activity. Quite a lot of the room rates that people quote in the media are not even for hotels but are for other types of accommodation.

We are acutely aware of the requirement for our industry to be competitive and we are acutely aware of the fact that Dublin has a capacity problem. We believe the market is working to fix that. It should be recalled that this happened because of the crash, which was only six or seven years ago and which meant hotels in Dublin were now worth a fraction of what it cost to build them. All of the money that came to work in Dublin was able to buy distressed assets rather than to build new capacity. We are now in a lag period where we have to catch up on our capacity. It is a supply and demand situation but it is only a supply and demand situation which affects those last 5% of rooms. I hope that helps to clarify what is going on. It is not as simple as some of the media hype and headlines suggest.