Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Farrell.

I welcome the Bill. It is important that we take every precaution and prepare as best we can in the context of Brexit. We still do not know what it will look like but we need to be as prepared as possible. Therefore, it is important that this Bill is before the House. It is also important to acknowledge those who have expressed support for it or who said they will not oppose it, in addition to those who facilitated this debate in the House. I thank everybody for the co-operation shown in the national interest and the attitude they adopted in respect of a matter of such significance and importance.

I acknowledge the many people across industry, Government and all facets of Irish society who have worked extremely hard since the Brexit vote in June 2016. We are aware that many have been presented with serious challenges and the working lives of many have been heavily affected by the decision. When we look around us we see great public servants, including in the Passport Office and many other areas where there has been a deluge of new applications and a huge increase in the volume of work. I acknowledge the very hard-working public servants involved in that work.

We talk about what may come after 29 March but, for many, Brexit has already happened and its effects are already evident. I am the Minister of State responsible for the tourism industry. Those in that industry, in addition to those in the motor trade and agriculture, have been experiencing serious difficulties since the vote on Brexit in June 2016. It has been a very difficult time. Some went out of business as a result of that decision. Not only are job losses being announced in the United Kingdom but people are also suffering here as a result of the decision. Collectively, we must do our very best to minimise the damage through our preparation and work.

I particularly want to acknowledge the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, and the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, Deputy McEntee, for their work on this difficult matter in recent years. I also commend the work done of the former Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, the former Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Flanagan, and the former Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, Dara Murphy. The approach of the Government since June 2016 has been correct at every stage. An exemplary approach has been adopted and we would be in a far weaker position had the Government not made the correct decisions all along. I thank the officials in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport who have worked extremely hard over the past two and a half years. A significant amount of work has gone on behind the scenes in preparing for Brexit. That work is not always seen but it takes time and effort and has to be done while other challenges are also happening.

I also acknowledge the roles played by Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland. Fáilte Ireland, as our national tourism development authority, has a critical role in this economy. I acknowledge the great work of Mr. Paul Kelly and his team in Fáilte Ireland. They were quick out of the blocks in preparing for Brexit and trying to address some of the difficulties and challenges that it may bring. It was a pleasure and honour for me to launch Fáilte Ireland's Get Brexit Ready programme in the summer of 2017. It must be acknowledged that Fáilte Ireland was preparing for this very quickly after the Brexit vote and, by the summer before last, had a detailed and helpful programme detailing how to mitigate the effects of Brexit for enterprises in the tourism industry. I know from dealing with people in industry and on the front line in tourism that the programme has been helpful. A large budgetary increase has been secured which is being pumped into parts of the country which are particularly exposed to the threat of Brexit, particularly Border counties. Fáilte Ireland has been proactive in trying to assist enterprises in those areas.

I also thank the people in Tourism Ireland, including Mr. Niall Gibbons and his team. I acknowledge their contribution. There was an immediate decline in visitors from Great Britain in June 2016 which continued through that year and in 2017. There was a slight increase and recovery in the figures in 2018. In the first month of this year, there was double digit growth in that market which is encouraging, although it is early days. That is the result of significant efforts on behalf of Tourism Ireland and working with partners and industry in Great Britain and it is encouraging to see. Overall tourist figures are up 11.8% in the first month of the year and our figures for visitors from Great Britain have recovered strongly. That has not happened by chance. One has to point to the efforts of Tourism Ireland through campaigns such as the Call of the Wild and the Wonders of the Wild Atlantic Way but also the co-ordination of the Brexit response group which has been meeting since 2016. I have been active in that group and it is representative of Government, the agencies and industry both here and in Great Britain. It has been positive, proactive and helpful in trying to recover UK tourists. It is good to see that 2019 is off to a good start. We need to continue to build on that because that market is too important for us to give up on. It has always been and always will be an important market.

We must acknowledge the success of our diversification efforts and global marketing. North American visitor numbers have grown from 1 million in 2013 to more than 2 million in 2018. Other markets, such as mainland Europe and emerging markets such as China and other parts of the world have been growing. That has helped to offset some of the effects of Brexit. It is critically important that the money from the budgetary increase secured before Christmas for agencies such as Tourism Ireland and Fáilte Ireland will go to the places where it is best spent. We know, through the new Fill Your Heart With Ireland campaign, that Tourism Ireland has ambitious plans for growing the 11 million-plus visitors to Ireland in 2018. That will mean more jobs and revenue for the types of services we are all looking for in our constituencies and communities. That is important. There are now 265,000 people employed in the tourism industry. Those are 265,000 lives and households dependent on these jobs and we need to ensure we do everything to protect them.

Ireland's membership of the European Union has been incredibly helpful to this county, much as the UK's membership has been helpful for it. It is a great shame that the UK voted to leave the EU. Let us not forget that, in 1945, most of this continent lay in ruins and millions of mostly innocent lives had been lost. It was a shocking and horrific conflict that we should never forget or let future generations forget.

Ours was an island in turmoil until relatively recently. The European Union played an important, and sometimes overlooked, part in securing the Good Friday Agreement. We all need to fight to protect that agreement because we know how bad things were, both North and South, and we can never go back. It is a shame, after two decades of the two countries coming so close together and making so much progress, that we are now seeing something that could drive a wedge between us. It is critical that we continue to build strong relations with our nearest neighbour, regardless of what Brexit holds, and continue to ensure that future generations of Irish, Northern Irish and British people never experience the horrific things that previous generations experienced. Those things scarred this country and this island for a long time. We all need to take a responsible approach to ensure that does not happen again. We need to work on relationships between people before we consider any of the other things that are being proposed by some quarters because the peace is fragile and it is too important to do anything that jeopardises it.

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