Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

After the three years we have just been through, capital funding for investment in tourism cannot come quickly enough for tourism businesses in my constituency.

For the information of the House, Carlow once served as the administrative capital of the Lordship of Ireland under King Edward III from 1361 to 1374. So I can say with confidence, we were once the capital of this fair land. Yet we lag behind other counties when it comes to spend. Carlow is the least visited county in Ireland. But we have such wealth in tourist attractions, from history, culture, adventure, water activities, castle hotels and luxurious accommodation, to golf and rural sports, the list is endless.

Capital expenditure on our tourism offering enables the sector to attract a greater number of tourists, both from overseas and domestically. Every 1,000 additional overseas tourists supports 20 jobs in the domestic tourism industry.

The domestic visitor is critical to tourism business, especially regional businesses, as domestic consumers will travel all year round and to a much wider breadth of destinations than the typical overseas visitor.

Recently, I supported my local credit union to undertake a charity walk in the beautiful Milford area of Carlow, an area rich with history, biodiversity and gorgeous scenery right by the river. Carlow Tourism has a great campaign called Wander off the Track which shows off our beautiful area in Carlow. One can walk, as I have often done, from Ballinabrannagh down to the great Tinnahinch, which is an area with beautiful scenery, but there needs to be more investment in this attraction. We are promoting people towards healthy eating and living and we have such wonderful attractions in Carlow, but we need to support more of them. I noticed myself that there are no toilets and the river track, even though it is beautiful, needs more work to be done on it. I ask that it be developed.

Carlow County Council has asked for support for the development of a water activity hub in Carlow Town Park for users of the River Barrow as an amenity and recreational hub for Carlow town and county together with the development of Oak Park into a high value tourist and amenity location with developed walking infrastructure. They have plans for the connection of the Wicklow Way in Clonegal with the South Leinster Way in Kildavin.

There are great plans that need our support to be realised for Carlow and there are great things happening with our tourist attractions. The OPW team at Altamont Gardens in Ballon were recently awarded the prestigious green flag award for 2022–23, an international scheme that recognises and encourages the provision of good quality parks and green spaces that are managed in environmentally sustainable ways. Good attractions deserve our support to promote them.

Fáilte Ireland’s capital allocation for 2022 is €36.5 million. To drawdown the full 2022 capital allocation, Fáilte Ireland would exceed the current threshold by €2.7 million and therefore no allocation can be made to Fáilte Ireland in 2023 unless the proposed legislation to increase the current threshold from €300 million to €500 million is enacted. I encourage us all, therefore, to support this Bill to get tourism funded and to support it to grow.

I am aware that I only have a few minutes speaking time left as I am sharing time but all I can say is that the Minister is welcome to Carlow and Kilkenny any time. I am so proud to be a Carlovian, we have so much to offer and we would greatly appreciate every piece of funding. I have called out a number of projects for the Minister which I know she will look at.

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