Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. As is often the case, the Deputy suggested two new stand-alone Ministries but did not enlighten us as to which two stand-alone Ministries he would wish to abolish to make that possible. The Constitution provides for a maximum of 15 senior Ministers, and only 15. I would be interested to know whether it is rural affairs, agriculture, children and youth affairs or which Ministries Deputy Collins would wish to abolish. He may wish to tell us.

In terms of the airport forms, they are not yet mandatory. They may well need to become mandatory. That is something we are considering at the moment, but I disagree with the Deputy. Making it mandatory for people to fill in forms to self-isolate for 14 days when they come to the country is not good for tourism. People will not come to Ireland if they have to isolate for 14 days. We need to get to the point where we can have air travel start again. I want air travel to start again for business and leisure but that will have to be done safely. That is being worked on at the moment.

Reducing VAT on the tourism and hospitality sector to 0% would be contrary to the EU VAT directive, so that is not possible for as long as we are a member of the European Union. It would be possible for the next Government to reduce it should it choose to do so, but that will be a matter for the next Government.

I absolutely agree that we will need a tourism recovery task force, as we did in the past, to get tourism going again. I had the privilege of being Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in my first job in Government and was able to oversee the implementation of the last report of the previous tourism recovery task force, which led to record levels of tourism in Ireland. I believe that is possible again.

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