Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

Let us imagine a meeting some months ago in either the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism or the Department of Transport at which Ministers and officials were deciding how to tackle head-on the challenge of diminishing tourism numbers. If someone had suggested the idea of charging everyone €10 extra to come and visit, one would assume that person would have been smacked down immediately. However, that is exactly what we are doing. The announcement by Ryanair today that it plans to cut flights further to a point where only three of its aircraft will operate from Shannon indicates what a nonsensical and utterly absurd decision it was to impose a travel tax.