Paul Gogarty (Dublin Mid West, Green Party)

I have two questions. The first relates to the cross-Border issue raised by Deputy Ó Caoláin. Is there any way, even anecdotally, of devising some form of analysis of the cross-Border figures to show how many people from overseas access the Republic via Northern Ireland as opposed to the many people resident there? They are different demographics and it would be interesting to view those statistics were there some way of doing so.

Staying on statistics, the Minister of State mentioned the quarterly figures which highlight the number of nights stayed by people residing temporarily in the country. These have been declining over a period. In this context and without prejudice to Fáilte Ireland's work but recognising the sterling work done by the Central Statistics Office, its professionalism and capability in this regard, would it be possible to use the CSO to take a sample of customer satisfaction levels when people enter or exit the country and examine such issues as cost and customer services? These types of figures should be taken together statistically rather than waiting for annual reports from Fáilte Ireland which examines them in a different context.

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