John Kelly (Labour)

Developing tourism is the most immediate means at our disposal of addressing the unemployment crisis. I commend the measures taken by the Government thus far, including the abolition of the air travel tax and reduction in the lower VAT rate. On the decision to allocate €1 million for a Discover Ireland promotional campaign, I refer to comments made by Mr. Niall Gibbons of Tourism Ireland at a recent conference in Galway at which he argued that the Government did not invest sufficiently in trying to capture the emerging markets of China and India. We need to address this issue.

Senator Mooney noted that, prior to the visit of the Queen, Mr. Gibbons had pointed out that British tourists did not view Ireland as a destination because they believed Ireland has the same type of infrastructure as Britain, for example, Irish and British cities have the same high street shops.