Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

On 18 June my colleagues and I highlighted the damage the travel tax imposed by the Government in its revised budgetary arrangements would cause to the tourism industry. Many months later the tourism renewal group has finally come around to our opinion. We were criticised in June for rowing in behind the allegedly spurious claims of Michael O'Leary of Ryanair but Aer Lingus, CityJet, the tourism renewal group and the Commission on Taxation have also recommended an immediate review of the travel tax. I suggested at the time that if the boffins and advisers within the Departments of Arts, Sport and Tourism, Transport and Finance wanted to encourage tourism, the last thing they should do was impose a tax on visitors to this country. It is time the decision was reviewed, although I do not have faith that the Government will do so. Even though the Minister for Finance described the VAT increase he had introduced as a disaster, he has not yet reviewed his decision, with the result that we continue to forsake a significant amount of tax revenue. In an equally nonsensical response to the request made by the three airlines for a review, the Department of Finance stated that if the tax was discouraging people from coming to Ireland, it should also be accepted that it discouraged people from leaving the country, thereby offsetting in part the impact it might be having on the tourism industry. If that is the wisdom from the Department, I am not surprised it imposed this tax.