John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The opposite is the intention. In fact, the new proposals envisage a wider brief for regional tourism authorities playing a strategic rather than administrative role and providing input into national policy. There will be a greatly increased emphasis by the regional tourism authorities on targeted marketing, product development and inter-price support, and this is precisely what has been recommended in the PWC report.

I expect the implementation to be completed by the end of the summer. As a consequence of the changes, I expect that the regional tourism authorities will have a far greater role to play on a local level and on a broader more strategic level than was previously the case. As I stated, the report highlighted that the regional tourism authorities were handicapped by virtue of the fact that they did not have as much power as they should have had in targeted marketing, product development and enterprise support, and it is intended through these changes to change all that.

It is not the intention to take power from the regions and vest it in the centre. The object of the exercise is quite the opposite — to devolve powers to the regions. Funding will follow the powers. That is the clear intention. I am confident the regional tourism authorities, with their increased powers, will be in a position to grow tourism in the regions to a greater extent than was ever the case previously.

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