Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Destination Towns scheme was an important landmark in terms of how we do tourism. Regional dispersal of tourists was very much at the heart of the thinking behind the scheme. It was, first and foremost, administered by Fáilte Ireland. As an initial attempt in that sphere, it was very positive. It was only in December that the successful towns were announced and, unfortunately, only a matter of weeks later this outbreak occurred. All schemes such as Destination Towns would normally be measured in terms of the expenditure, as to whether value for money has been recovered by the towns and, therefore, by the agency in terms of the money that was granted. It will obviously be difficult to measure the impact this year of Destination Towns grants that were announced at the end of last year. Certainly the way ahead for tourism on this island has to be very much about the less well-known and more off-the-beaten-track destinations, those places where one can get the authentic experience but also where one is not contributing in a negative way to the lifestyles of people who live in those areas.

The great southern greenway in Deputy Leddin's own county and into Listowel also has the Tralee-Fenit element. There is a great opportunity for all of that to be linked up and for further progress on the Deputy's side of the city and beyond. There is a massive opportunity there, especially with the Shannon. These are the types of things I would like to see happening into the future. This seismic shock event has changed everything. All our future plans will have to be looked at. Everything that we plan to do and what we had planned to do for tourism into the years ahead will have to be reassessed and re-evaluated. Of course a lot of money will be required to stimulate activity in the sector at our current level and from a capital perspective. When we look at the space in which consumers may be into the future the outdoor and less congregated settings will become even more important. These are the issues we will look at. I will go back to Fáilte Ireland and look at the work it has done to date with what it had intended to do to follow up on destination towns. I ask Deputies to bear in mind that because of what has happened it is hugely impacted by the fact that we have not yet gauged the effectiveness of the scheme.

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