Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The Minister and his Government has made a lot of the importance of tourism in the economic recovery. The jobs initiative last year identified the tourism sector as being of key importance and, as such, the Minister would be well aware of the raid on private pension funds to the tune of €470 million to support that initiative.

The Government has spent a lot of time spinning the line that it is rebuilding Ireland's reputation abroad when it was not damaged in the first place. There was, however, an opportunity to take some practical steps, such as having stands at tourism conferences. It was unusual, therefore, that there was no Tourism Ireland stand at the Belgian holiday fare, which is one of the biggest each year and which promotes about 7,000 holiday destinations. More than 100,000 people attended the exhibition and it can reach in excess of 1 million holiday makers. I do not want to criticise the people who work for Tourism Ireland, because they do an excellent job, but they must focus on the right priorities and the Minister bears some responsibility in this regard, particularly when he has highlighted tourism.

As part of the jobs initiative and the raid on the private pension funds to the tune of €470 million, a number of subheads were identified for where that money would be spent, both on PRSI and VAT, and it was mentioned that we would get rid of the travel tax, which was to bring in substantial funds. Why has that additional funding from the pension funds not been spent on the lifting of the travel tax to support the Minister's initiatives that he has identified as being key to economic recovery?

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