John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

There was a welcome increase of 6.5 million in the number of visitors to the country last year, which was the highest number ever to visit the State in one year. It is true, however, that all regions and sectors did not benefit equally and this is causing a difficulty for us. For example, the Dublin region increased by 11% whereas some regions increased only by small margins.

In those circumstances, I recently announced a new initiative, the creation of three new super-regions — Ireland west, Ireland south and Ireland east — the idea being that each would receive €1 million from Fáilte Ireland and would also be resourced from within the industry to market the regions as an individual unit in all our main markets. The object of the exercise is to bring more visitors into the regions and I am confident this will be successful.

We also announced a new local area marketing fund of €1 million. Again I anticipate the funding will be supplemented by the industry in due course. As I said in my reply, more than €60 million, the highest amount in the history of the State, is being invested through Fáilte Ireland in marketing the regions. I am confident we will succeed in spreading the benefits of tourism to the regions to a greater extent this year than last year.

I agree with Deputy Deenihan that there is a fall-off in some activity holidays. In particular, there is a fall off in angling compared with 1999 figures. This is related to the paucity of salmon in the rivers. The fall off in hillwalking and general walking holidays is due to the question of the land of Ireland being open to all. In some instances this is not the case.

I am pleased that there has been an increase in golf tourism. Last year approximately 200,000 people came to Ireland to play golf, which was a record number. I anticipate the numbers will be even greater this year following the Ryder Cup in September of which we are set to take advantage. More than 400 golf courses in Ireland are affiliated and one third of the world's championship links courses are located in Ireland. The Ryder Cup offers an ideal opportunity to bring more into the regions because the majority of the golf courses are located in the regions.

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