Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

In my view — I believe Deputy Mitchell agrees with me — is that those markets have huge potential. I have no doubt in my mind about that. The more wealth created in the Middle East, Asia, India and China in particular the greater will be the numbers of people travelling here. If we are to attract directly into Ireland the volume of visitors which I believe are available, we will have to change our mindset in terms of how we operate this system. Departments, and those operating the system, are up for that. There is a greater understanding now of the requirement to reduce complexities in this area and equally of ensuring a proper balance in terms of cost and so on. The fee is largely to cover administration of the visa application. There is no excess involved.

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