Ciarán Cannon (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister. My wife and I own a rural pub in east Galway and have a role and interest in seeing tourism numbers increase in that neck of the woods. As somebody involved in the industry I was hugely heartened to see the Minister appointed to the role. She had an excellent track record in her previous ministries and approaches things with a can-do attitude which I am sure will come to bear in her tourism role in the near future.

A contributor to the website www.politics.ie stated two days ago:

I flew into Shannon yesterday evening and never saw the place so deserted. All that was missing was tumbleweed. At 6.30 p.m. all upstairs bars and shops were shut. I could only see one other person on the whole floor, the garda on duty at the departure door and maybe 20 people downstairs including staff.

The concern voiced by the contributor is real. It is reflected in the many calls I have received from people in the west who have passed through Shannon Airport in the past few months. Shannon is dying on its feet. From a peak in 2007 it has seen a 55% drop in passenger numbers. At its height in 2008 Ryanair employed 300 staff at Shannon, had six aircraft based there and served 53 destinations throughout Europe. Just two years later Ryanair has just one aircraft at Shannon Airport and now employs 45 people. It will shortly close its route to Paris and, having closed that, will serve just six destinations in Europe from Shannon.

We have moved from a time where 53 cities in Europe had direct access to the heart of the west, arguably our most valuable tourism asset, to a situation where there are now just six cities. The argument the Minister made, namely, that the drop in numbers can be partly attributed to the global economic downturn, does not stack up. Those who remember discussion of the travel tax which began in late 2008 will recall that it was the first time in ten years it was becoming more than apparent to everybody involved in tourism, including airlines, hotel owners and those who owned and operated attractions throughout the country, that a downturn was beginning to happen. It was the first time in ten years that the numbers travelling through airports had begun to drop and the drop was perfectly apparent to everyone. I cannot understand what sort of gathering of minds occurred in a room and which, having looked at the figures and an impending drop in tourism numbers and looking for ideas as to how we might halt that drop, developed only one idea, namely, to charge people €10 more every time they set foot in the country. That decision may have been made at a time when some still believed that our economic growth was set to continue. It was made at a time when a €10 travel tax was not that much of an imposition on travellers.

We are now in a very different place. When one logs on to the Ryanair website, as I did this morning, one will find that next March one can travel from Frankfurt to Killarney for €42 return, one quarter of which comprises the €10 travel tax. If I am sitting in Frankfurt deciding whether to travel to Killarney, Rome, Oslo or Paris, the €10 travel tax will have a very real effect on the decision I make. Let us consider what is happening in the rest of Europe and the tourism figures in countries which do not have a €10 travel tax. Tourism numbers in Spain are up 2.9% in the past year, in Germany 7.3% France 3.3%, in Italy 6.3%, in Turkey 24%, in Portugal 5.1%, in Finland and in Morocco 15.3%. There are two countries which have seen their numbers drop, the UK and Ireland. What is the common thread? The UK is imposing an £11 travel tax and we are imposing a €10 travel tax.

The Minister spoke earlier about speaking with Mr. Mueller and Mr. O'Leary and asking them what they had to offer in return for dropping the tax. It is a very valid question because we have to be certain that if we were to drop the tax there would be something for the State in return. The only figures I can offer are those which Ryanair gave to me in the past number of days. It told me that if the tax is abolished it can increase the numbers through Cork Airport by 800,000, in Dublin Airport by 4.5 million and in Shannon Airport by 600,000 between now and 2015.

Who is to know whether those figures are accurate? I do not want to try to read the mind of the Minister but I have a funny feeling from listening to her words earlier that she is increasingly of the opinion that this is the approach to take. Let us give Ryanair that opportunity over the next two years and call its bluff to see its bona fides, as Senator Cassidy described it, and see if it can produce those figures. We do not have a lot to lose and despite what people say about Mr. O' Leary there is a certain element of patriotism at the heart of everything he does. Obviously, as a businessman the bottom line is where the buck stops with him but, if given the opportunity, Ryanair and Aer Lingus could produce the increases in passengers they described.

I spoke about Shannon Airport. We have to do something drastic and radical if we are to save it. Imagine if the situation in Shannon applied to any other industry, where its manager is effectively its biggest competitor. Shannon Airport is managed by the Dublin Airport Authority, DAA. It is like having the management of Dell managing Intel in Ireland. It does not make any sense. The approach the DAA seems to be taking is that it needs to legitimise and support the decision it has taken to build terminal 2 and in order for it to do that it needs to drive passenger numbers towards Dublin.

There has been a large drop in passenger numbers in Shannon and we will see a similar drop in Cork, and are already seeing similar drops in Killarney and other destinations. Everything the DAA is doing has the aim of driving passengers towards Dublin and the new terminal, in particular. Why can Shannon and Cork not compete with Dublin? Competition has worked for this country in every sector in which it has been applied fairly, legitimately and with some sense of planning. For example, in the telecoms sector one can now go to a shop and buy a phone - one operator is giving them away for free. It would not have happened 20 years ago without the competition we have had in the telecoms sector. Our electricity prices are constantly dropping because competition works.

I worked with a charity that flew disabled children and their carers to Lourdes every Easter when 1,000 of us would descend upon the town. My job was to get them there and back safely. In doing so I worked hand in glove with the authorities at Tarbes airport, a reasonably sized airport just outside the town of Lourdes. It is owned primarily by the Tarbes chamber of commerce and Tarbes is a city of approximately 60,000 people. Why could we not examine the option of allowing Shannon Airport to be owned and operated by the joint chambers of commerce along the west coast and include Galway, Limerick and the other towns which have active chambers of commerce which would have the resources and expertise to run Shannon Airport? The airport needs to fulfil only one role - to be a conduit to get people in and out of what I argue is still our most valuable tourism offering, the west coast from County Kerry to County Donegal. It does not need to make one cent in profit from one end of the year to the other; it simply needs to break even and not be a burden on the taxpayer.

Let us look at some imaginative ideas and innovation. This is the thinking we need to get the tourism industry back on its feet, as we have a fantastic product. Recently I attended the opening of a new section of road in Connemara which the NRA developed as a prototype and pilot scheme, as part of which a 3 m wide cycle route was built separately along the main national secondary route. This could be replicated along the entire west coast where there are many country roads with little or no traffic.

We have a fantastic offering and a sector which is now willing to do its best to improve the quality of that offering and reduce the cost to tourists. However, the one outstanding problem is getting people in and out of the country cheaply and efficiently. This is where the Minister has a major role to play and I wish her the very best in so doing.