Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Minister said, the CSO figures which were published last month showed a drop of 9% in visitors from Britain during the July to September period. He is aware that his Minister of State, Deputy Ring, launched an "Escape the Madness" Olympics campaign to target some 8 million Londoners. It would appear Londoners were quite disinterested in that and declined his invitation. The question also arises as to whether it was a sensible campaign in the first place. Is it possible the slogan "Escape the Madness" was considered somewhat insulting to Londoners and to people in that region generally considering they were hosting what is undoubtedly one of the most important sporting events of the year? In light of that, has any review taken place of that campaign and whether the creative aspect was developed in-house, en route to Mayo or through some of the external agencies that are hired in on an ongoing basis? If that is the case, the Minister might come back to us with some information.

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