Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)

I wish to share my time with Deputies Eric Byrne, Seán Kenny, Ann Phelan and Kevin Humphreys. We will each have four minutes.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Bill and wish to refer to the significance of the tourism industry to the island of Ireland. The Bill ensures there will not be a situation where Fáilte Ireland will not be able to provide funding, given that the tourism industry will play a unique part in our national recovery. Tourism is one of the key industries in which we hope to focus on job creation and also offers a way of stimulating domestic demand for local business.

I am Chairman of the Good Friday Agreement Implementation Committee and have meetings with Tourism Ireland on a regular basis. It is one of the all-island bodies formed under the Good Friday Agreement and one of its key objectives is to sell the island of Ireland abroad and to support Northern Ireland to reach its tourism potential. It has told me that it is seeing a change in international perceptions since the peace agreement. Year on year, more people see the island of Ireland as a safe place to visit, which is good news and correlates with the growth of our tourist market.

Tourism Ireland is funded by grants from Fáilte Ireland and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. Its key action is to spread the message that Ireland is a good place to visit on holidays. It is focusing on key markets in Germany, the USA, France and Great Britain because these markets account for approximately three quarters of all overseas visitors. I note Deputy Fleming's remarks about markets such as Russia and China being potentially large sources of tourists and that we could do more work in that regard. However, it is important to recognise that the vast majority of tourists comes from the four markets cited and these are the markets in which we can get best bang for our buck in terms of investment in the tourism industry.

The island is being sold abroad as one tourism commodity in order to bring international visitors to destinations on both sides of the Border. This is being done via on-line media, targeted promotional advertising and stands at festivals and trade events. Targeted events and campaigns are being used to focus on the Diaspora, for example. We are putting particular emphasis on the Scots-Irish and Ulster-Scots in the United States and Canada.

If any Member is interested, there are up-to-date figures available which show how the tourism industry is performing. I note Deputy Mulherin's remark on the necessity of having such figures. We have them from as recently as this morning and they tell us there has been 10% growth in the first six months of the year, which is great news. For the Republic, the figure is 12%, with a slightly lower figure for the North. This is one of the consequences of the Government's attempts to generate jobs through initiatives such as the 9% VAT rate for tourist and service industries. This has allowed us to compete and, as a result, attract more visitors to the country. The key factor in attracting additional tourists is ensuring we have something attractive for them to see.

For example, in 2013 Derry will be the UK's City of Culture and I am sure we can expect many tourists to travel from that city to the Republic during at that time. In recent months, hordes of tourists attended events such as the Rose of Tralee and the Lisdoonvarna festival. This afternoon the Solheim Cup will begin in County Meath. This will be the largest golfing event to be held in the country in many years, and 80,000 visitors are expected to attend the event over the weekend. President McAleese is due to take part in the opening ceremony later today. Events of this nature, which are put together by many agencies, can assist in attracting additional tourists to the country. I congratulate Tourism Ireland, Fáilte Ireland and local tourism boards on their efforts in ensuring more tourists visit the country. The latter leads to the creation of many local jobs, which are badly needed at this stage.

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