Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

While I greatly value the work of the CSO, it is always helpful to have more statistics. As the Deputy will be aware, the CSO compiles monthly figures on overseas travel and carries out quarterly and annual surveys on tourism and travel. The monthly figures cover total travel to Ireland. The Deputy is correct that the figures include a range of categories of visitors, including those who come here to work and those who come for a walking holiday. Through every phase one gets more detailed information. The quarterly survey contains country of residence information as well as the passenger card inquiry. The latter provides much more detail as to why people are coming here and where they are going. As I have said before, however, we need much more information, which would be of great help to us. That information is being sought and I am in constant touch with the Central Statistics Office regarding that.

I gave the Deputy the facts concerning the increase in expenditure from 2000, in accordance with the question, which was €2.6 billion on all overseas routes. It has risen to €3.2 billion, which represents a rise of 22.4%. I also referred to the consumer price index increase. The annual figures for 2005 will be available next spring, which is the way it is done because it is detailed work. The most recent figures for visitor numbers are those for September 2005, which were published on 23 November. They show that the number of trips to Ireland increased by almost 53,000 on the same month in 2004. That is an increase of8.9%, so the figures are looking good. I accept what the Deputy said in that some detailed work remains to be done on the precise reasons people come and where they are travelling within the country. We could do some work on a regional basis as well and I am pursuing that with the CSO.

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