John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I support the motion tabled by Deputy Upton on behalf of the Labour Party. It is timely in the sense that figures for the past 12 to 18 months show a reduction in the number of tourists coming to Ireland. The essential point of this motion is that the Government cannot simply sit on its hands and cite the amount of money that has been spent on marketing and so on. We have wonderful resources for tourism. Like Deputy Ring, I am from County Mayo and from the west of Ireland and one great aspect of tourism is that many of the resources are located in places that are on the periphery, rather than in core areas. However, it is important that features such as landscape, beaches, water, activities, culture, sport, music or whatever all must be marketed to the maximum. My question is whether they all being marketed in the proper manner. While I am sure the Minister will cite figures on how much has been spent, could it be spent better? Could it be spent on a regional or local basis? I have in mind a few local and particular examples, such as the Ballina Salmon Festival, which was launched last week and which has a branding. In other words, I refer to the branding associated with particular areas. The Volvo ocean race event in Galway last year was driven and derived its sense of identity from the local area. As for the millions of people in the Irish diaspora abroad, sometimes the connection is better made from a local area rather than on a wider scale as a target that is too wide sometimes tends to be missed.

As Ireland is an island nation, the importance of accessibility is huge and the air travel tax has been a contributory factor. While the Minister makes the point that it is not the major factor, it is a contributory factor. For example, I wish to illustrate the importance of Ireland West Airport Knock as a contributor to tourism in the west. Goodbody's drew up a study for the airport recently, which revealed that 190,000 inbound tourists passed through the airport in 2009, spending a total of €62 million. This supported almost 800 jobs directly and indirectly and the potential in this regard is enormous. For example, there is a potential for €1.5 billion in revenue and 2.5 million bed nights in the region. Members can imagine the boom this would bring, were it possible to exploit it, both in County Mayo and throughout the west and north west. Moreover, this example pertains to one small regional airport. For all this to happen, the Government must be proactive, inventive and supportive of the tourism industry and I fully support this motion.

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