Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Upton and the Labour Party for tabling the motion. Three home truths should be pointed out to the Minister and the Government. The travel tax should be abolished and if the Minster gets half a chance, she will do that. It is hugely important that this happens because we got a bad name all over the world, particularly among our competitors.

The second home truth is the powers that be must understand what are the old reliables or workhorses of our economy, that is, tourism and agriculture. Now that the famous construction bubble has burst, the more we go back to the old reliables, the quicker we will get out of the recession and the more jobs we will create. As Deputy Mitchell rightly said, this issue was mishandled.

The third home truth relates to research conducted recently, which found that 90% of tourists who visited Ireland were happy with the friendliness of the people and that is a factor that will bring many of them back again. We must hold on to that for as long as possible because that is the connection that will bring them back. We then decided to slap on a travel tax to ensure we are not competitive around the world.

There are always changes from one year to the next - for example, currency fluctuations. We should promote Ireland in countries whose inhabitants would find it good value to travel here. We must be nimble and quick-witted in selling Ireland. With the worldwide web and all the other means of communication, we should have no trouble doing this. There are some good brains in Irish tourism but unless we get our act together over the next year or two, our competitors will clean us off the face of the earth.

The drop in the number of tourists visiting Ireland is extraordinarily serious. If we think of the 1 million people who live in Dublin today, we can imagine the number of people who could have come to Ireland last year but did not. If we want to retain jobs, we know what we have to do. I wish the Minister luck, and I hope that in the next budget the travel tax will be gone.

See this speech in context