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

I am acutely aware of the devastating loss of business experienced by the coach tourism sector and the difficult environment it is working in. The impact of Covid-19 on tourism globally has been overwhelming and immediate with unprecedented consequences for Ireland's tourism and hospitality sector, including coach tourism. I fully appreciate the important role coach tourism plays as a vital component in supporting the wider tourism industry including hotels, restaurants, cafes and shops in all parts of the country.

Many coach tourism operators invested heavily in their fleet in anticipation of high levels of tourism in 2020. The onset of the pandemic wiped out most of their business overnight. In this context, I was pleased to make €10 million available as part of the Government's July stimulus to assist the sector through a business continuity scheme to be administered by Fåilte Ireland. Following consultation with the Coach Tourism Transport Council, the coach tourism business continuity scheme was launched last week.

The key qualifying criteria of the scheme are as follows: the scheme is targeted at coach tourism operators and must satisfy the conditions under the EU's Covid-19 state aid temporary framework; the coach tourism fleet must have been active in tourism as of 13 March 2020 and remain in the applicant's fleet at the date of application; the qualifying vehicles must be primarily used in coach tourism and have been purchased, leased or hired and registered on or after 1 July 2013; the applicant must intend to continue operating in coach tourism through 2021 with this fleet; and applicants must commit to completing and adhering to Fáilte Ireland's Covid-19 safety charter.

The criteria for age restrictions of vehicles is in line with the standards set by the CTTC and tour operators. In the development of the scheme, a number of criteria were considered to define the maximum age of the vehicle. The CTTC set the maximum age of vehicles suitable to operate in coach tourism at seven years. Tour operators stipulate in their contracts for the supply of vehicles that vehicles no older than five years should be used for general leisure clients and reduced to between two and three years for corporate and incentive travel. With that in mind, in the development of the scheme, two extra years were built in to allow for exceptional circumstances which would include very high-volume periods where a five-year-old coach was not available.

Budget 2021 included a number of substantial measures to support and strengthen the tourism sector. The measures introduced in the budget were informed by the tourism recovery plan which was prepared by the tourism recovery task force. The total funding for the tourism sector will increase in 2021 by more than €59 million, or 36%, over the initial 2020 allocation in budget 2020 to €220.9 million.

The funding will comprise of €179.9 million in current expenditure and €41 million in capital investment. Under budget 2021, I am providing €55 million for strategic tourism businesses to help them survive through the pandemic and be there to help drive the recovery. Combined with the Covid resilience support scheme, the VAT reduction and the rates waiver, the Government is helping to sustain the businesses that have been most severely affected by the necessary public health restrictions. In addition, investment in the tourism marketing fund has been maintained to ensure Ireland is in a postilion to recover quickly, when it is safe to do so, for tourists from our key markets.

On the Deputy's question about the take-up of the scheme, it only launched last week. I can get my officials to look into that for the Deputy but it has not yet been open for seven days. I will follow up on it with him.

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