Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Not only are Tourism Ireland and the Department constantly engaging with airlines to try to develop as many services as we can into and out of the country, but we also work with them on marketing programmes and trying to support routes when they are put in place. It is one thing to secure a route, but without a collaborative approach in supporting those routes when they are there, they are very to sustain. We are working on that. My engagement with Tourism Ireland over the past ten months or so has been very positive. It has been very impressive to watch it at work because it works very closely with the airlines, as does Fáilte Ireland. Having such an increase in the services into and out of the country in the past seven or eight years has led to the success story. The scrapping of the airport tax is a help as is the 9% VAT rate.

Last year, 2017, was another record year when we again had huge growth. In the US market specifically, we increased by 16.3% on the previous year.

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