Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

My point is the meaning and definition of the word, "temporary".

I welcome the initiatives for the tourism sector. I have listened to some Deputies on the other side who were predicting that hundreds of thousands of tourists would come here on the back of the €3 reduction in the air travel tax. I more particularly welcome the initiative announced this morning by the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar and the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, about what is termed "staycations", the stay at home vacations, a €1 million initiative to encourage Irish people to holiday here. However, when some airlines charge passengers €40 to print an A4 sheet of paper or €15 if one wishes to throw a plastic bag in the hold, I am a little sceptical about their ability to deliver extra passengers on the basis of a €3 reduction in the air travel tax.

I would be more confident about the ability of airlines to deliver extra passengers if the agreement to which the Government has referred had been done before the introduction of this Bill to the House. The Government is committing to reach agreement with the airlines about a quid pro quo. It has decided to reduce the air travel tax on a date to be agreed if the airlines promise to bring in more people into the country. However, the legislation does not specify a date. We are all familiar with regional airports and we all know that airlines make commitments and promises to bring in hundreds of thousands of passengers if they are given extra supports but they rarely live up to the expectation. Fianna Fáil will take the Government on trust. I would ask the airlines flying into Ireland, in particular, Ryanair and Aer Lingus, as a gesture of faith in their ability to deliver on bringing in more tourists, to implement the €3 reduction on airfares now, as a gesture of their faith in their ability to deliver on the fares.

However, the airlines have moved on the debate to the subject of Dublin Airport Authority airport charges at Dublin, Shannon and Cork airports. We are well used to Michael O'Leary rattling cages and cheerleading but when the chief executive officer of Aer Lingus becomes involved, it is time we all took notice. Aer Lingus is the anchor tenant in Terminal 2. It seems to me that the biggest challenge facing us in an attempt to persuade the airlines to engage with tourism promotion projects and to reduce the cost of bringing people into Ireland is the question of airport charges. If a substantial reduction were to be offered this would raise issues about the viability of the DAA and the Vote of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

We are tinkering at the edges with a €3 reduction which I am not convinced will make any significant difference when the big elephant in the room is the need for us to completely reform the way we run our State airports. Colm McCarthy in his report has highlighted some of these issues. I do not have to tell Deputy Breen about them. We should not be overly optimistic.

I welcome the reduction of VAT in respect of certain goods and services. I do not believe it will save money for consumers but it will give the message that we are cutting costs. I am at a loss and it has not been explained to me how as an island nation we introduce a tourism initiative, reduce the rate of VAT on many tourism-based services but the cost of car hire has been deliberately excluded from the VAT reduction. I ask the Minister if he could find a way of considering its inclusion in the initiative. The United States and the United Kingdom are our key markets and tourists arriving by aeroplane need a car in order to get to the key tourist areas which we want to promote. They will need a car to get out of the capital city - I mean no offence in saying that. Our rates for car hire are already higher than our competitor markets by virtue of our general high cost base and because of the small size of our market.

This initiative was an opportunity to make a direct attack on car hire which is one of the bigger costs of a holiday in Ireland but I am afraid that chance has been missed. I suggest that on Committee Stage the Minister could explain the costing for including car hire in the initiative because I suspect it would be very small. If the reduction were to be applied between now and the end of December it could be reviewed subsequently.

I suggest that timing is important because this is when people are deciding on summer holidays. The country has had a fantastic week with images of the visits of the Queen and President Obama broadcast around the world. However, the imagery from Iceland in the past few days is not helpful because it may reinforce a decision to stay at home. Now is the time to reduce these costs so that when people are making travel and accommodation arrangements they will know that bookings after 1 July will benefit from all the reductions. If we are to do something about the rates for car hire, it would be preferable for tourists to know that if bookings are made after 1 July they will benefit from the reduction. This is why I ask the airlines to bring in the reductions now for those planning to travel to Ireland.

This is an initiative aimed at tackling unemployment and as such is welcome. One of the issues facing unemployed people is the difficulty in making their social welfare payments match the cost of living. One of the biggest problems they face is the cost of fuel, which is going through the roof on a daily basis. The Government continues to have an opportunity to reduce the 13% VAT rate that applies to fuel. A decrease in fuel costs would make a difference to people's daily lives. I ask the Government to show us how much it would cost the Exchequer if it were to reduce fuel costs by decreasing the rate of VAT on fuel. How much would that cost in the context of the resources that are available? The documentation that was provided on the day of the jobs initiative included target figures for the amount of money to be raised through the pension levy. Although a great deal of money will be allocated to capital expenditure and various initiatives, not all of the money that will be collected under the levy will be spent. I think there will be an underspend of approximately €180 million. If the money accrued from the pension levy is to be spent directly on the jobs initiative, as the Government has said it wants to do, that underspend will have to be addressed. A number of areas could be suggested to that end.

The jobs initiative announcement did not refer to the work that is under way to transfer the trade functions of the Department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation to the Department of Foreign Affairs. The transfer has not happened because there has been a delay in bringing the delegation of powers measures before the House. It suggests there is a problem. Two and a half months have passed since the composition of the Government was announced, but the arrangements for transferring powers and functions have not yet come before the House. I do not want to be the second Deputy in a day to be thrown out for complaining about the delegation of functions. It is an issue. I congratulate the Government on its decision to give trade functions to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Such cohesion is long overdue. It will focus the trade section and the foreign affairs section. If we do not do it quickly and ensure that our message is properly joined-up, it will lose its effectiveness. Although our export sector is powering ahead and our international markets are doing very well, there is a danger we will get complacent and take it for granted that those markets will continue to do well and to demand our goods. It is proper and right that we should focus on domestic issues, but we should not lose our focus on the export market. We need to move ahead quickly. I would like the Government to come before the House next week to introduce legislation providing for the proper reorganisation of Departments. Two and a half months into the lifetime of the Government, it is only fair for us to expect such action to be taken. It is necessary to allow everyone to focus on ensuring our export markets continue to perform strongly.

I welcome the initiative and the spirit in which it was introduced. The many omissions from the initiative are particularly disappointing for the public, however. The expectations of the people were not created by Members on this side of the House or by what happened before the election, but by Members on the other side of the House when they were in election mode and when they prepared the programme for Government. Having said that, I welcome the various additional capital initiatives that are to be pursued throughout the country. Deputy Nash spoke about contracts. The Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, is directly responsible for this matter. I reiterate my request for the Construction Contracts Bill 2010 to be advanced as a matter of urgency. We need to give subcontractors some security when it comes to Government contracts. The biggest jobs initiative we could adopt would involve guaranteeing Irish jobs to Irish suppliers. At this stage in our economic development, we should challenge things like EU procurement rules and ensure the money the Government has found and put aside for capital investment stays in this country.

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