Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Durkan for raising this question. Tourism continues to contribute significantly to Ireland's economic recovery.  CSO figures for the first nine months of 2015 show that there were over 6.64 million overseas visits to Ireland, which represents an increase of 12.5% on the same nine-month period of 2014. This growth in overseas visits has been accompanied by strong growth in overseas tourism revenue from all the main markets. The most recent CSO quarterly tourism and travel publication shows that spending in Ireland by overseas visitors, excluding air fares or ferry charges, for the first half of 2015 increased by 16.2% compared to the same six-month period in 2014.  There was 8.4% growth in revenue from Great Britain, 33.7% growth in revenue from North America and 14.9% growth in revenue from mainland Europe.  Other long-haul markets recorded 2.6% growth in revenue.

The Government's tourism policy statement, People, Place and Policy - Growing Tourism to 2025, was launched in March of this year.  It acknowledges that generating increased levels of overseas revenue is a key part of the future of Irish tourism.  The main targets contained in the tourism policy statement to be achieved by 2025 are to increase overseas tourism revenue to €5 billion net of inflation, compared to €3.5 billion in 2014; to increase overseas visits to Ireland to 10 million, compared to 7.6 million in 2014; and to have 250,000 people employed in the tourism sector, compared to 205,000 at present. Earlier this year, the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, and I appointed a tourism leadership group to put in place a tourism action plan that will set out the actions required in the period to 2018 to achieve the overall objectives in People, Place and Policy - Growing Tourism to 2025 and to ensure the strong growth experienced in recent years continues. We intend to publish the tourism action plan in the first quarter of 2016.

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