Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

It is right that the aim should be that every facility should be open 12 months of the year. We would all accept there may be some smaller facilities where it would not be realistic to achieve that, but the aim should be to achieve it. A substantial number of projects, large and small, have been identified throughout the country to enhance the product. A number of those are in State ownership, which would make them the direct responsibility of the Office of Public Works. To be fair to the OPW, it has not been slow about working up the plans.

I will not deny there is a current difficulty with the budgetary position with regard to implementing some of those proposals but, nevertheless, my attitude is that we would keep pushing ahead. If we need to go to planning, or whatever we need to do, let us keep doing what we are doing and prime pump everything. Some money will be spent so it is not a case of none being spent. Even from the tourism side, the product development fund is still there, and while it is not as big as we might like it to be, it is helping projects to develop.

The Deputy is correct that because we market Ireland with an island-of-Ireland approach, we need to have that necklace of regional activity so that people who come into Northern Ireland can also visit the mid-west, and those who come into the south-east can also visit the North and see the attractions of the whole island.

Deputy Olivia Mitchell rightly raised the point that there are a number of good bodies which operate under broad umbrellas, such as the Town and Country Homes Association, the Irish Georgian Society and specialist mansions. While they are all well-meaning and do good work, none of them on their own can market internationally in the way they should. There should be an overall branding so we can put all the resources into one marketing campaign, and these bodies can exist underneath the surface. It is not feasible and it is poor organisation to maximise the cost of trying to bring a global image worldwide by marketing all of those bodies. It is possible to do this, not by spending more money but simply by using what is in all the little pots and putting it together. The sum of all the parts will create much more than having these bodies operate individually. In particularly tight times, every penny must be maximised. This is how some of that will be done and more of it can be done.

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