Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

The number of tourists coming in from Australia and the developing markets - mainly India, China and the Middle East - has seen double digit growth in 2011. Growth was at 18% up until the middle of the year, albeit coming from a very low base, and the overall figure was 10%, which is really good. Our biggest growth was from those new emerging markets, albeit a small part of the tourist numbers that come to Ireland.

It is a little bit hard to read it in some ways due to the UK waiver system, because if a person already has a UK visa, he or she does not need a visa to come into Ireland anymore. Therefore, when we see the number of visa applications for Ireland falling, it is hard to know whether we interpret that as fewer people coming in or as people just using their UK visa. However, the Government understands that we need to do a little bit more on visas. I had a bilateral meeting with the Minister for Justice and Equality about that. When I travelled to India and the Middle East, that message comes back strongly. It was an issue raised at the Global Irish Network. Notwithstanding security concerns, we can do more on the visa front and in giving visas to investors.

One factor we must take into account is the fact that we are part of the common travel area with Britain. Giving people access to Ireland must be co-ordinated with Britain, or we may lose the common travel area. I would love Ireland to be in Schengen, so that people would not need a visa to travel from other parts of Europe to Ireland. We cannot do that now because we would have to leave the common travel area, which would mean border controls with London. It is a price that is too high to pay. We will still do as much as we can on visas.

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