Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy John Deasy for raising this issue. I am glad to hear him refer to the initiative that was announced yesterday. It is very important for the east and south and I hope the community will buy into it. Deputy John Deasy is quite correct about the success of the Wild Atlantic Way. It has been a great success and as with any great success, people want to be part of it. However, what was announced yesterday can also be a success, but people have to buy into it. We do not need negativity on it, rather we need positivity. The community must buy in, which it has an opportunity now to do. I will respond to the Deputy on his other request after I read my reply into the record.

The role of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport in relation to tourism lies primarily in the area of national policy. The development of the Wild Atlantic Way is an operational matter for Fáilte Ireland and the Department is not directly involved in its development or management. That said, I can tell the Deputy that the route of the Wild Atlantic Way was developed with the assistance of consultants, the Paul Hogarth Company. A unified approach was taken in which regional steering groups were convened to inform route development. The steering groups included Fáilte Ireland, local authorities, local LEADER and development companies and other key agencies such as Údarás na Gaeltachta, the Western Development Commission and others as relevant to each particular region. The process involved an extensive study of the coast, a review of existing driving routes, the establishment of route selection criteria, an evaluation of various route options, the identification of the route spine and a comprehensive process of stakeholder, community and public consultation. In total, 366 feedback submissions were made containing 862 individual comments. Following this wide-ranging process, I launched the Wild Atlantic Way just over a year ago. It is already proving very popular and will be a great international success.

The Deputy should note that the Wild Atlantic Way is an international tourism proposition for the west coast of Ireland. The project was born out of the need to address the dramatic decline in international visitors to the west of Ireland over the last decade. The route itself is designed to bring scale and singularity to the tourism offering of the west of Ireland in terms of overseas promotion and marketing. The main objective of the Wild Atlantic Way project is to motivate more overseas visitors to visit the west of Ireland, to give them reasons to linger longer in terms of tourism experiences and to encourage them to engage with the landscape and communities along the route. It is about encouraging international visitors to choose the west of Ireland as a holiday destination. The Wild Atlantic Way initiative was never intended to be defined by the extent of Ireland's Atlantic coast, but was broadly to follow the routing of the Malin to Mizen geography and those west coast counties that share a common unifying tourism proposition. As a visitor experience, the Wild Atlantic Way is about experiencing where the land meets the sea and how the sea has shaped and influenced what happens on the land. As the design of the route was about wildness, the overarching principles of the route require a focus on the wild Atlantic. The route is designed to hug the coast wherever possible and avoids dilution of the concept by straying inland.

Given our limited resources, it was not possible to do everything at once. As the Wild Atlantic Way gained momentum, however, we were able to look at tourism propositions that would match the tourism assets in the south and east of the country. What we provide must be distinctive and always match what customers are seeking. Our research has informed us that we need to highlight better the tourism assets we have to match the interests and requirements of the consumers identified in our most promising market segments. For that reason, the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, and I launched this week a new brand proposition that groups the cultural and heritage tourism assets and experiences of Ireland's east and south into a new tourism experience via a network of routes, trails and journeys. Ireland's Ancient East is a customer-oriented tourism initiative for the south, east and midlands majoring on the abundance of cultural and heritage assets to be found in these areas. All of these areas share a common richness in their histories such as Viking Waterford, medieval Kilkenny and the Boyne Valley.

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