John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The tourism review group noted two key issues in the promotion and development of tourism at a sub-national level. The first relates to the role carried out by the RTAs on behalf of Fáilte Ireland and the appropriateness of the existing structures. The second relates to harnessing and making more coherent the role played by the plethora of bodies involved in the promotion and development of tourism at regional and local level.

Fáilte Ireland has advised me that the PricewaterhouseCoopers report highlighted the need for a much wider brief for regional tourism, playing a strategic rather than an administrative role. The report recommends a greatly increased emphasis on what the Deputy has identified as a weakness, namely targeted marketing by the RTAs. It also recommends a product development role for the RTAs and it envisages enterprise support by the RTAs. If this concept is to progress there must be greater integration between regional tourism strategy and national policy. We should seek to exploit synergies to leverage increased resources. That is the general concept. Resourcing for the RTAs would increase immeasurably and the system whereby the RTAs are expected to collect their own salaries would end. If we can resolve the issues that centre around Dublin tourism we can make move forward with a new, more integrated structure that will yield benefits for the industry and the consumer. Our role is to ensure the consumer gets the best service and that the industry is in a position to provide that service.

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