Mr. James McGinley:

Before Covid, 200 ships had come into Dublin Port. The figure of €70 million was mentioned this week in stories in the news about what the market is worth to the economy. Today, the Regal Princessarrived in Cobh with 3,000 people coming off and heading to Cobh, Kinsale, Killarney and Blarney. Passengers are spreading out to all of those places in rural areas, leaving money everywhere they go. There is huge potential, but the problem is that the cruise companies are not just coming to Ireland to see Cobh. If they are coming to the country, they will normally do two or three calls, but if the capital city is not on the itinerary, the chances are that they will not come. The cruises are happening at the moment because the itineraries have been planned three or four years in advance. Rather than change the itinerary, the companies will go to Dún Laoghaire rather than Dublin Port but when they see that they are getting lots of complaints about tenders not running and people not getting ashore, they will pull Dublin from the itinerary and if Dublin is not on it, Killybegs and the other places will follow. It is a great opportunity. To be honest, we are the only country that is not at the races in this regard. I was in Europe last week at events and all these cities are pushing hard for this business. They are building piers and putting the infrastructure in places so that the cruise companies can come in, yet we are not even there. In fact, we have a sign up saying Ireland is closed for this business. It is a real pity and a loss to see it going when we had it so good pre-Covid.