John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

Yes. The amount of funding that has been made available for marketing Ireland abroad is at its highest ever level. We are spending record sums of money in all our main markets, as well as in other markets that do not offer as many visitors as we would like. The marketing is ongoing and between the public and private sectors it is quite considerable. I am satisfied, as is Tourism Ireland, that the available resources are sufficient to take on all comers. Naturally, we would all like to have more resources but that question is for another day. As of now, however, Tourism Ireland is in a position to take on all comers and is doing so extremely successfully.

The World Tourism Organisation estimated the number of tourists fell by 1.2% last year and Europe's performance was, at best, flat. Ireland, however, has growth rates in the order of 5% so it is clear the number of visitors coming here is increasing in a marketplace that is more competitive than ever before. Tourism Ireland deserves great credit for that good news.

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