John O'Donoghue (Kerry South, Fianna Fail)

The articles of association of the former regional tourism authorities govern the formation of the county tourism committees. Now that the RTAs no longer exist, the former county tourism committees have also lapsed. PricewaterhouseCoopers examined the county committees and determined that the State structures to support tourism had significantly disaggregated over time and that a large number of entities were involved. There was too much duplication. The effectiveness of the county tourism committees is quite debatable. Some of them met infrequently, many of them were barely staffed and it is clear they were under-resourced and had limited access to finance. Local authorities are adequately represented on the new regional development boards. Too much duplication in tourism is a mistake. It leads to inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

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