Ms Katherine Licken:

Fáilte Ireland has been a critical player in the response to Covid. Its business, which it continues, was in developing the tourism product. It continued that throughout Covid and, at the same time, reorientated itself to deliver a range of grant programmes. It has engaged extensively with us, the tourism sector and the wider hospitality sector, which is covered by us and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. Fáilte Ireland has been very flexible in moving quickly to provide schemes and engage with the sector and with us. For example, it provided a €10 million inbound agents business continuity scheme, a €10 million coach tour operators business continuity scheme, a €26 million adaptation fund from August to December 2020 and an €8 million restart scheme.

Budget 2021 allocated more money and the tourism business continuity scheme was launched on 1 February. That was in addition to all of the horizontal supports and to the guidance. Fáilte Ireland has been a key player in providing guidance in the sector. There were the regulations when the restrictions were in place and there is a series of guidance measures. A phenomenal amount of work went on behind the scenes to produce that guidance, in consultation with the sectors and with ourselves. If the committee would like, we can ask Fáilte Ireland to provide the committee with a detailed note and if it has some specific issue or difficulty we can certainly address that. To reiterate, Fáilte Ireland has played a critical role and has not been found wanting from our perspective in responding quickly.