Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I very much welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion tabled by Deputy Upton. It again raises issues in the industry. The Government, the Minister and the Department know the issues but despite all the lip-service paid to the importance of the industry, to the value of the jobs and to its foreign currency raising importance to the country, it is rhetoric and, in many cases, it is not backed by action. If this country is to recover and if we are to restore growth, it must be through growth in export services of which tourism is our most significant and best prospect. Despite the fact that thousands of jobs have been lost in the sector, as the Minister mentioned, it is still our largest employer and provides jobs in towns and villages in which there are very few other jobs and in which, if lost, there is very little prospect of replacement jobs.

The Government has never really rated tourism as a sector and its structures and agencies reflect this disregard. There are simply too many overlapping and competing agencies. Funding and effort has been dissipated and there is no single voice representing Irish tourism and speaking on its behalf. It is an industry of thousands of mostly small individual enterprises. By its very nature, it is fragmented and dispersed and it needs a single unifying agency or body to give leadership, direction and coherence. Instead, a fragmented industry has fragmented leadership and organisation. It is another case of where the incumbent, the organisation and the vested interest, are put before the needs of the majority.

Like the problems in the economy and the banks, the problems in tourism did not just start in September 2008. The Government cannot solely blame the worldwide collapse of tourism. Our collapse has not only been greater than elsewhere but our problems started far earlier than anywhere else. The frightening truth is that outside Dublin, we have gained few additional foreign visitors holidaying here over the past ten years. In those ten years, the number of visitors from Britain has continued to fall. That trend was masked by the growth of short stay visitors in Dublin and by the substantial increase in holiday breaks - short stays and weekends - being taken by Irish people during the Celtic tiger years, reflecting rising incomes at that time. That is all gone now and the underlying truth has been revealed. We had too much of a grossly overpriced product and at Government and agency levels, we had administration and leadership that lacked coherence.

If we are spending the huge sums of money, to which the Minister referred, on marketing at home and abroad - €50 million by Tourism Ireland this year - and we are not really gaining, then the only possible conclusion is that we are doing something seriously wrong. In terms of organisation, activity and expenditure, no area can be uncritically questioned at this stage.

The foot and mouth disease outbreak coupled with the ludicrous overpricing at the time lost us the edge in golfing tourism and other country sports. The Minister mentioned golf which is to the fore currently. During that period of time when the country was cut off, golfers went elsewhere and found an equally good product at a much better price and they have never returned to Ireland.

Today, we have a once-off, time-related opportunity to relaunch Ireland as the European cradle of golf and as the home of Harrington and McDowell. We should send out that message loud and clear today, targeting the American market, in particular, where I do not believe there was a golfer who did not watch an Irish player win the US Open in the past few days. We should sell ourselves as the hothouse of golf and send the message that golf is now affordable in Ireland, which it certainly was not in recent years. We should bring in the promoters from the US in their hundreds free of charge, showcase Ireland and try to re-establish once and for all this country as a golfing destination. That is an aside and something we can do right now.

There is clear advice on what else needs to be done to try to safeguard what is left of the industry and retain the infrastructure, expertise and investment in order that there is a springboard for recovery when it comes. Advice from the Minister's own advisers, the business community, IBEC, the renewal group, the Commission on Taxation, the National Competitive Council, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation and Fáilte Ireland is to get rid of the travel tax. I have spoken repeatedly about the disastrous consequences of this on access to Ireland. For an island country to lose connectivity to more than 30 destinations in the past 12 months is little short of a catastrophe. No amount of marketing can counteract that. If people cannot get here easily and cheaply, they will not come no matter how appealing our marketing is. This tax may take in €100 million for the Government but costs hundreds of millions of euro in lost revenue to the State and many lost jobs. It is not only me saying that but all the Minister's best advice is along similar lines. The Government's position on this has been perverse, as is its position on visas.

As the Minister rightly said, the Minister for Foreign Affairs was at Expo 2010 in China last week. I gather there was a big Irish delegation and a huge Irish spend. I applaud that and would not for a minute criticise the fact people are travelling to China to sell Ireland. It is laudable and necessary but it is ultimately self-defeating if the same ludicrous visa situation continues. I have highlighted the issue repeated. Every application is treated as if it is an immigration application. Businessmen seeking opportunities to buy and sell here are required to provide such a level of information and engage in so much form filling that it shows us to be a totally bureaucratic and unwelcoming nation. They would lose the will to do any business here. We treat businessmen like that and the poor feckless tourist is treated as badly. China has been identified as an emerging market for trade and tourism. If we could even get a fraction of that growing market, it would solve all our problems.

I have raised the car hire issue many times. I checked the price of hiring a car in Dublin and in Edinburgh today and, in all cases, it is dearer here and, in some cases, it is twice as dear. Few providers here had an automatic car available. In one case, the cheapest automatic car available was more than €1,000 per week. One might as well say goodbye to the American market. The Minister can check those prices tomorrow.

There are other areas in which costs need to be addressed. From a tax perspective, VAT on wine is a real turn-off for people. The price of hotels is coming down but food and drink is ridiculously expensive. Perhaps wine should be treated as food rather than alcohol for VAT purposes.

The joint labour committee structure should be restructured or abolished. I completely agree with my colleague in regard to the exploitation of workers. It is absolutely reprehensible and should never happen. In particular, it should not happen to our visitor workers, although it did in some places. Most people are trying to do the best they can to obey the law but the law, as it stands, has cost jobs and we should address that.

The deal the Spanish Government is doing, about which I have spoken repeatedly, is one we will have to consider. I spoke to one travel agent who brought 6,000 visitors from Ireland to Spain because of the attractiveness of this deal.

I wanted to refer to zombie hotels but the Minister is aware of the problem. It is crucial that NAMA does not nurse these hotels. Normal market conditions must return and while that will be painful, the sooner we suffer the pain, the sooner we can return to normal. There is no excuse for nursing businesses that are unsustainable and that were overleveraged to begin with.

There were 23% fewer visitors in the first three months of this year compared with last year. Last year was catastrophic. Government Deputies and the Minister's predecessor said 2010 would be better but it has been worse. The Minister cannot blame the volcano problem, which did not emerge until April; the euro exchange rate, which was worse in 2009; or the drop in worldwide travel, which was also worse in 2009. We are going in the wrong direction. I wish the Minister well but if I was in her position, I would question everything she is doing.

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