Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is my maiden address to the Dáil so I will take the opportunity to thank the people of Cork South-West who have put their faith in me. I assure them that I will repay them for it.

It goes without saying that I share the concerns expressed by other Deputies regarding public health. Public health is paramount. The safety of our communities is also paramount. All necessary precautions must be taken. That goes without saying.

I want to touch on the potential impact on the tourism industry. I am delighted the Minister of State, Deputy Griffin, is in the Chamber while I am making this point. I am delighted he has assured the tourism industry that some steps will be taken. I come from Cork South-West. Many Deputies will be familiar with the area and may have been there. It is a place of immense beauty, from the Old Head of Kinsale in the east all the way down to Dursey Island in the west. There are beautiful tourism towns, such as Kinsale, Clonakilty, Skibbereen and Bantry, and they depend on tourism for employment. We have to put safeguards in place to ensure that there is as little an impact as possible on such towns. The café owners, restaurateurs, hoteliers and publicans are worried and concerned about the potential impact. Obviously, there will be an impact because containment will mean a restriction on the movement of people. Potentially, there will be a restriction on flights. It is already happening. I guess the impact is evident already. We have seen the situation with Flybe. The Cork-Cardiff flight will be affected. I have already heard of hotels in the Cork area whose books have been cleared because of cancellations, including cancellations of business trips. Therefore, we need to put plans in place. The tourism bodies - Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland - need to take steps and may need to rethink strategies, including marketing strategies. If there is a marketing strategy for northern Italy, maybe we need to rethink it and focus on the domestic market in order to keep it robust. Perhaps we need to think the same way about the United Kingdom, obviously depending on the escalation of the spread of the virus there.

It is really important that we do not turn our backs on the tourism industry. It was said when the VAT increase was made that we would revisit the measure in the case of crisis. This is a crisis and it is worth revisiting.

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