Mr. Eoghan O'Mara Walsh:

I fully agree value is critical. In the 2000s, we became expensive as a country. The financial crash then kicked off but it took us approximately seven years to regain the lost market share, so value is critical at the moment. The figures I quoted for the latest month we have, February, are a compilation of 64,000 hotel bedrooms, independently audited by STR, that give the average rate. They relate to February, so that figure does not, obviously, refer to future months. The increase in the price of the average room is 26% above that of the same month pre-pandemic, which, to my mind, is driven largely by increased costs and so on. The small minority of operators that charge ridiculous prices are not representative of the true tourism industry and do not cast the wider tourism industry in a good light.

They have damaged the industry. We have been calling for some time for traders and providers of all types, whether they are big multinationals, SMEs, guest houses, tourist attractions, hotels, culture companies or whatever, to be mindful of value. Even if the cost base has risen and, obviously, many of those costs have to be passed on to the consumer, ultimately, the product or service provided to the end user must continue to offer value. If we lose our value proposition, we will be in trouble. We are very conscious of that. It is an issue we have spoken about clearly for several months.