Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I thank my colleague, Deputy Mitchell, for bringing this issue to the fore. I wish the Minister well in her new portfolio. I am somewhat disappointed with the Minister for Finance tonight. I assume that he has to back the budget measures but with regard to the rationale behind what he stated, I fully appreciate the €10 travel tax is not the reason the entire thing has fallen to 2004 levels. Nobody is suggesting that. Our essential point is that from a tourism perspective, right across the world all indications are that people like to come to Ireland because we are a friendly nation, which hopefully will continue. This always is the top reason in all surveys and is of great importance. Anything that takes away from this is bad for Ireland. It should be noted that governments and nations throughout the world are doing their level best to do what we also are trying to do here, which is to get more people to visit their respective tourist spots. In the last budget, the Government added another trap that would make it a little more difficult for those who sell our product globally to come to Ireland. That is all that happened. In bad or difficult times, such loading, even if it only amounts to €1, sends out the wrong signal. Hopefully, we will return to a position whereby far more people will visit Ireland than there are natives living here. Both Fine Gael and the new Minister wants to see the country teeming with visitors. I would like to spend half an hour discussing the point that regardless of how one attracts such visitors in, the subsequent distribution constitutes another major story on which Members do not have the time to dwell this evening. However, the travel tax simply sends out the wrong signal at the wrong time, which is the reason so many people were sickened by what happened.

I refer to an issue on which Deputy Mitchell has argued strongly. It is to be hoped that this tax will be removed shortly and I expect that on foot of its abolition, when and if that happens, the strategic routes axed by both Aer Lingus and Ryanair will be restored because they are vital to the tourism industry. I will conclude by asking the Ministers of Tourism, Culture and Sport and Finance to take seriously the issue of zombie hotels. As far as I can ascertain, the banks and their supporters are putting family-run hotels out of business. Should this happen, it would be nothing short of a disaster. While I do not know how this might be achieved, I ask the Ministers opposite not to allow the banks to add insult to injury by keeping the aforementioned hotels open for their own purposes.

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