Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. The Wild Atlantic Way brand has successfully grabbed the imagination of many visitors to Ireland and proved to be a very popular proposition for attract tourists. The OPW manages in excess of 716 national monument and heritage sites, a significant number of which are located on the route to which the Deputy referred. We are all familiar with sites such as Newgrange which attract large numbers and where the OPW provides a range of visitor services. However, on many more sites in State care these services are not provided and the majority of the monuments are in their natural state in the Irish countryside, a significant proportion of which are to be found on the route of the Wild Atlantic Way.

Understanding that a large proportion of visitors who come to Ireland want to experience cultural and heritage sites, the relevant agencies involved, namely, Fáilte Ireland, the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the OPW, are working actively together on a plan to better promote the Wild Atlantic Way. This project has as its objective the better promotion of the Wild Atlantic Way's heritage sites and will seek to promote them coherently within each of the six Fáilte Ireland zones which have been created for the purposes of marketing this important route.

The three agencies are working to examine all of the Wild Atlantic Way sites to establish what is available for visitors at the locations concerned and how the sites might be made more attractive to tourists. In broad terms, what is emerging through the study is that there is a series of "bundles" or "clusters" of sites which represent possibilities to enrich the visitor or tourist experience, drawing them into less visited parts of the country and keeping them there longer, with consequent benefits for local economies.

These offerings will be promoted internationally in targeted markets by Fáilte Ireland and its sister organisation, Tourism Ireland. The project is being actively pursued by the three organisations involved in an ongoing process that will continually be updated and redeveloped.

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