Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am acutely aware of the enormous and unprecedented challenges which face the tourism and hospitality sectors as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Almost all tourism businesses were initially required to close to comply with the necessary public health measures introduced. Many have since reopened but, unfortunately, the majority of businesses are operating with significantly reduced levels of turnover compared with 2019 as a result of the ongoing public health measures and the almost complete absence of overseas tourists coming into the country. This has meant that many jobs in the sector have been lost or remain vulnerable.

Along with my colleagues in Government, I have taken a number of measures to help the sector survive this crisis. The July stimulus package introduced significant measures to help businesses recover following the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 crisis. Some of the key measures for tourism and hospitality include the stay and spend initiative, the €26 million adaptation grant, the €10 million grant for coach tourism and the revised restart grant, which now includes bed and breakfast establishments. Tourism enterprises will also benefit from wider horizontal support, such as the new employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, liquidity and enterprise investment measures, warehousing of tax liabilities and the extension for a further three months of the waiver of commercial rates. As part of its response to Covid-19 and to drive bookings for short breaks and holidays in Ireland in 2020, Fáilte Ireland has invested in a number of domestic holiday campaigns since June of this year, and I have seen at first hand that these campaigns have been successful in getting Irish people to holiday at home.

All of these measures have helped the sector, but I appreciate that severe challenges remain and there is justified deep concern in the sector. We need to continue to examine ways to ensure businesses survive and recover. The tourism recovery task force, appointed in May, has just submitted its report to me. It is making a number of recommendations to help the sector survive the crisis and recover. That will feed into the roadmap the Deputy refers to in her question. Along with my colleagues in Government, I will consider its recommendations as we prepare for the budget and the subsequent national economic plan.

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