Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I agree with the Deputy and I would be very regretful about such incidents. I have no reason to disbelieve her that that was the experience of those people. I do not know why it happened. I do not know whether it was a one-off incident for some specific reason. However, I take the point. If we are to be serious these things need to be in place for seven days a week in a seamless way. They need to be open on public holidays, which is when people want to be there. The Deputy is right in identifying this as a big part of our tourism product. More than €3 million of our €8 million went specifically towards cultural tourism. Some 60% came from abroad, which is the right mix. There are more coming in and that will probably even increase. Some 40% came from the island of Ireland.

I have spoken at length on the issue of opening times. Private sector businesses would be open because they are trying to make money to survive and pay their staff. They want to provide a good product. That is recognised. There was very substantial improvement in recent times on the way things were run up to a few years ago which was almost on a five-day week closing at 5 o'clock basis, which was utterly unacceptable. We now need to get to the next level and be fully open at the times people expect, as we expect when we go abroad. We expect to be able to walk into a museum or cultural institution and would be surprised if it was closed. The same applies to people coming here.

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