Tom Kitt (Dublin South, Fianna Fail)

The only information we have comes under the heading of cross-Border travel. The expenditure figure in 2000 was €207 million, and it was €236 million in 2004. Those are the figures we have and the Deputy can obviously access them on our website under the heading of tourism and travel 2004. They were published on 26 April 2005. We will have the new information for 2005 next spring.

The Deputy asked about North-South co-operation, which was also raised in a previous question. I have asked my officials about the matter and there is a considerable amount of co-operation between North and South in compiling these figures. CSO officials met their Northern Ireland counterparts in the Statistical and Research Agency and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. While there is good interaction between our agencies and theirs in this area, we need to do much more work in this regard. As I have already said, when the institutions are hopefully back up and running, tourism is an obvious area where it would be most helpful to have an island of Ireland approach. I know our tourism agencies would welcome that approach in order to work together on compiling data. Alongside this work, Fáilte Ireland does a great deal of work on a regional basis. Many Deputies from various political parties have asked for more work to be undertaken in this respect, and I am pursuing that matter with the CSO.

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