Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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Last Monday, Tourism Ireland announced that it has acquired the Ireland.com domain name from The Irish Times, in a deal worth almost €500,000. In doing so, Tourism Ireland has greatly inconvenienced as many as 15,000 Ireland.com domain users who have been told they are about to lose their e-mail addresses. The Minister may be able to provide us with more information on this.

The users who have been in contact with me have indicated that from 7 November people who have had @ireland.com as part of their e-mail address will have to change it. It is imperative that the Minister act to ensure that Tourism Ireland's purchase of the Ireland.com domain address does not deprive these customers of a valuable service. Instead of shutting down the domain address, the service should be enhanced and promoted. People who have been promoting Ireland through this address should not be punished as a result of the purchase by Tourism Ireland, ultimately the State, of the domain address.

There are many benefits of the @ireland.com element of an e-mail address. It has been used as a service by many within the Irish diaspora. I know many people who are proud to have the element @ireland.com, and the resource could be expanded and used as a tool to encourage people to come to Ireland as part of the Gathering. Many people use the element in their e-mail address, and more would do so if they were aware of it.

I hope Tourism Ireland's purchase will lead to an enhanced service being made available. It has huge advertising potential for Tourism Ireland and I hope we will hear more about that.

I have received correspondence from a number of concerned e-mail account holders who have been told their service will be withdrawn before Christmas. It is important that some clarity be brought to the situation at the earliest possible opportunity to allay any fears that are there. There are others who, if the service is not to be continued, will have to change stationery and find another service provider. Finding a new service provider may not be expensive but the ancillary costs of having stationery re-printed would be a nuisance and an annoyance.

As the Minister knows, these types of operators, some of them with only two or three staff, are the last people we wish to inconvenience at present.

Clearly, two groups have the most to lose. One is the diaspora, and the huge opportunity that exists there, and the other is small and medium enterprises, some of them single-owner type operations, which will be put to considerable expense if they cannot retain that e-mail address. I appeal to the Minister to examine the real potential here. I am glad the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ring, is present too. He keeps in regular contact with many in the diaspora, probably by e-mail in some cases, and he will be very aware of the importance of its retention. Hopefully, we can find a solution here. I look forward to hearing the Minister's response. I will try not to be critical until I have at least had an opportunity to hear it.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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First, I thank the Deputy for raising this matter, which I am aware has received some media coverage in recent days. However, the decision to purchase the domain name Ireland.com from The Irish Times was an operational decision by Tourism Ireland and its board. Tourism Ireland is a North-South body that is jointly funded by the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. The issue of accommodating existing @ireland.com e-mail address holders in as helpful and fair a manner as possible is clearly the responsibility of The Irish Times and one over which I have no responsibility.

With regard to the decision to purchase the domain name from The Irish Times, I understand that Tourism Ireland firmly believes that having a simple domain name like Ireland.com will have significant benefits. Primarily it is felt that given the ease of recognition and memorability, the new domain name will deliver greater "stand out" for Ireland around the world. From a tourism perspective, Tourism Ireland believes the move is timely for a number of reasons. First, it is at present redeveloping its suite of websites with the aim of capitalising on the ever increasing importance of the Internet for the planning of holidays by potential tourists worldwide. Second, we are in the advanced stages of preparations for The Gathering Ireland 2013, Ireland's biggest ever tourism initiative. Having a simple domain name like Ireland.com can only help in projecting an even stronger online presence to achieve our ambitious targets for visitor numbers.

It is also worth putting on the record the business case advanced by Tourism Ireland for purchasing the domain name. I understand that the cost involved was just under €0.5 million. While this is a considerable amount of money in the current economic climate, Tourism Ireland is in no doubt that the cost represents very good value. The rationale for this belief includes the fact that at present Ireland.com is a competitor for search engine traffic. In other words, when people overseas are searching online for information on holidays in Ireland, they may be directed towards this site rather than existing Discover Ireland sites. Accordingly, the acquisition will be beneficial in accessing that traffic.

Second, it is believed that the simplicity and directness of lreland.com will facilitate an increase in direct traffic and will also help capture increased organic search engine traffic. Furthermore, Tourism Ireland's business case for the project identified that cost savings will also be achieved through a reduction in its paid search engine optimisation activity. In this regard, a proportion of Tourism Ireland's marketing budget each year is devoted to ensuring that the Tourism Ireland website is advertised on search engine sites such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. In fact, Tourism Ireland's projections show that the costs of the acquisition will be fully recouped in just over three years.

Reverting to the issue of the existing e-mail subscribers, I understand that The Irish Times has contacted all @Ireland.com subscribers to advise them that the e-mail service will be discontinued from 7 November 2012 in terms of sending or receiving messages. Users will, however, be able to access their account until 7 December for the purpose of transferring any data currently saved on their account. To help users to move easily to a new provider, I am informed that The Irish Times has a helpline in operation from 8 a.m to 8 p.m. and there is also a step-by-step guide available on the Ireland.com website to assist its customers with the transition.

In conclusion, my primary focus in tourism is obviously to ensure that we do everything we can to grow visitor numbers in the years ahead and achieve our ambitious targets in this regard. At the same time, I share the Deputy's desire to ensure that nobody is inconvenienced by the purchase of the domain name as discussed. However, Tourism Ireland only bought the domain name, www.ireland.com, and not the customer database of e-mail subscribers. Therefore, any decisions relating to the e-mail service and the matter of accommodating existing users are entirely the responsibility of The Irish Times. I hope the efforts it is making to facilitate a smooth changeover for its clients will continue right up to the transition date.

Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for his comprehensive outline of the background to what happened. I fully support what Tourism Ireland has done. It was excellent use of public moneys to purchase this domain name. Clearly, it was ludicrous to have Ireland.com in the ownership of an agency that does not have the promotion of Ireland within its remit. We have seen where similar cases occurred with other brands as a result of how domain names were handed out in the early years. The Minister and I are at one on that. I also accept that Tourism Ireland might not be in a position to purchase the database of subscribers. It was probably prudent to opt for just the domain name.

However, there is nothing of which I am aware that would prevent Tourism Ireland from establishing as a service provider, providing e-mail accounts and e-mail addresses as an enhanced component of the ownership of that domain name. Without purchasing the subscriber database, it could certainly offer the service, with the Ireland.com address, to those who wish to have it. Migration would take place naturally, with no additional cost to the State. There would be an added ability to promote the domain name if it was also offering it as an e-mail address. Many of the other search engines already do so, such as Google with gmail. It is a cost to them but they see it as an essential component of attracting people into what is their community. They do it quite successfully.

There is a very strong argument for Tourism Ireland, which is now offering a new portal or base for the consolidation of its web presence and the capacity to advertise to a broader audience, to add this service provision of e-mail. It is a loss leader for most of the search engines. Yahoo, Google and all the others do it. If Tourism Ireland thinks this through, it will see the benefits. I ask the Minister to raise this issue with the agency. If it would require an additional allocation of resources, I will certainly not criticise the Minister or Tourism Ireland. I would fully support it.

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the Deputy's comments and concerns. I agree that Ireland.com is a good purchase for Tourism Ireland. It will be in public ownership, or at least in the ownership of a North-South body. A lady in the United States whom I know quite well and with whom I stayed for some time has an Ireland.com address, and she asked me what .ie meant at the end of all my e-mail addresses. In America all addresses are X, Y or Z.com and having the domain name Ireland.com in the ownership of Tourism Ireland is very valuable. The only concern that might arise is that when Ireland.com becomes a tourism portal and website, allowing anybody to have that address might cause people to believe they are somehow associated with official Ireland, the Government or tourism when they are not. However, perhaps that is not a reasonable concern. Everybody knows that if one's address is gmail, it does not mean one works for Google. I understand what the Deputy means.

I do not know what can be done in this space. The duty of care lies with The Irish Times because only the domain name was bought, not the customer database. I will discuss it with the chief executive of Tourism Ireland to see if there is a way to facilitate people retaining those addresses, provided it does not prejudice the purchase of the domain name.