Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

There are currently no proposals to reconfigure the regions as this has been a recent reorganisation. I am not sure to what extent tourists even recognise the existence of regions in any case. People tend to visit destinations rather than a region created by a tourism body. People have been travelling to traditional tourism hot spots to which visitors have travelled for centuries and these destinations tend to do very well, such as Killarney, Galway and Dublin. It is a challenge to get people to go to other areas which are less visited and should be visited much more, the midlands being a case in point.

Dublin Tourism is being reintegrated into Fáilte Ireland and it will be used to disperse tourists who stay in Dublin by encouraging them to visit other parts of the country such as the areas around Dublin and beyond and ideally, for them to spend a night in these areas. One of the factors mitigating against overnight stays by tourists is the great improvement in the road network. It is now very common for visitors to take day trips to Clare and the Cliffs of Moher, for example or to other parts of the country whereas in the past they would have stayed the night. It would be desirable to have events at night to persuade them to stay later in a region and perhaps overnight.

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