Sean Barrett (Independent)

We have been far too complacent with our tourism industry. Since 2007, there have been 25% fewer visitors with a 30% drop in tourism revenues while over €600 million was spent on tourism promotion. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Leo Varadkar, asked how one gets better value for money. One has to examine such expenditure against such reductions in visitors and revenue. Tourism is about product and price, not about quangos or marketing. The recently published stability programme update adds approximately €10 billion to the tax bill in this country. I hope the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, can achieve what he wants by decreasing expenditure rather than increasing taxation. Can tourism survive if we require an extra €10 billion in taxation? Excess taxation and costs cause all sorts of trouble. I welcome the abolition of the travel tax and wonder who came up with it. Some 10% of people come to this island by sea and 90% come by air. Europeans wishing to travel to Germany can get there by car or bus. Travel tax for an island country was a crazy idea and the Government is correct to abolish it.

There is a problem with the Dublin Airport Authority rebate. The Minister intervened with the regulator on 27 October 2009 to secure a 41% increase in airport charges, which is the reason the airlines are sore. That information was leaked in an ESRI report. Mr. Colm McCarthy in his report on privatisation stated that Dublin Airport benefits from the support of a regulatory regime. The maximum passenger charge increased by 41% between 2009 and 2011. That should not have happened. If one looks at Mr. McCarthy's numbers, one finds that the 25% reduction in passenger numbers at Dublin Airport Authority airports was accompanied by a 2% reduction in staff and as such staff productivity has fallen. Mr. McCarthy also drew attention to the fact that the airports have engaged in an immense investment programme which has left them heavily in debt. The Dublin Airport Authority should not have been exempted from regulation. This is a quasi-judicial process in which the Minister intervened by letter to secure a 41% increase in charges. This explains the reason for much of the annoyance. Mr. McCarthy also points out that the effects of the regulatory settlement ordered by the Minister by letter is that current customers must pay increased charges to reflect excess capacity, a perverse outcome which could not arise in a competitive industry.

I ask the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, in the context of a shortage of money, to examine some of the things we do. For instance, the 2009 annual report of the then Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism published in May records, under the heading "Summary of Major Achievements" outlines a reduction of 12% on the 2008 performance. We have been throwing good money after bad. We cannot even borrow money any more. We must re-examine the €600 million spend which resulted in 30% less revenue since 2007.

Local authorities charge €1,500 in rates for every hotel room. The McLaughlin report recommends severe cuts in local authority management, in respect of which there is a surplus of approximately 1,000 managers. That, rather that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government inventing extra taxation, should happen. There is a problem with the high burden of local authority rates on the tourism sector.

There is no doubt that there is a problem in regard to promotion of transport within this country. Part of the problem arose when in this House on 26 November 2009 the then Minister for Transport invoked Article 25.2.2° of the Constitution and asked the President to sign into law the Public Transport Regulation Bill 2009 at an earlier date than normal. That Bill guaranteed the entire CIE network as a monopoly without new entrants. It also guaranteed it every penny of subsidy without any competitive tendering. Approximately 44% of bus receipts in this country are from independent operators which the Department of Transport has tried to keep out of business for years and in that regard invoked the Constitution on 26 November 2009. The Dublin-Galway route once served by the monopoly with one bus a day is now served by 45 buses a day through three different operators. We have made the cost of getting around this country unnecessarily expensive. I hope that during my time as a Member of this House, Article 25.2.2° of the Constitution will not be invoked to deny the President time to consider legislation, as to do so is draconian.

The Wright report on the Department of Finance makes recommendations of wider relevance to governance. It recommends major changes in budgetary processes that would enhance ministerial accountability to Parliament. We need to know what we got for the €600 million, the reason Ministers intervened to increase airport charges by 41% and the reason the Constitution was invoked to prevent bus companies from competing. We must make this product competitive. Now that no one will lend money to us we must get value for money. That focus has not been present in relation to Irish tourism. We must become more competitive if we are to recoup the 30% loss in receipts over the past four years.