Martin Conway (Fine Gael)

If we want to promote tourism, we need to respect tourists and work with people. Altering charges and having a till automatically set to up charges at a certain time of night is unethical and inappropriate and should not happen.

The Government alone will not solve the problems of the country. We must all work together - businesses, workers, agencies and the Government. The jobs initiative is a very good start, but we need much more. The next step should be to synchronise the various marketing agencies that market our tourist product abroad. We have a lot of them and many of them do good work, but there is a significant overlap. When it comes to national campaigns such as the one to have the Cliffs of Moher included as one of the seven wonders of nature, every citizen has a responsibility to use whatever means possible to ensure we get over the line on 11 November 2011. It would make a significant difference to tourism.

In his previous capacity as Opposition education spokesperson, the Minister of State brought forward interesting proposals to promote educational tourism and the teaching of English as a foreign language. He spoke about the potential for growth in that regard. Emerging economies such as those of China, Taiwan and other countries have people with significant amounts of money who want their children to learn English. There is also potential in the American market to develop courses in the arts. One can see what is being done in north County Clare with the Burren College of Art. This is something that could be replicated throughout the country. Every county has glorious, unique factors that could be used to develop various courses and initiatives. We will always have traditional tourism sources where somebody flies in, spends two weeks in the country and then flies out again. However, if we want to make a difference, we must be novel and innovative and consider initiatives in terms of international festivals, educational tourism, art and culture tourism and so on. I hope the jobs initiative which is welcome and a breath of fresh air is successful. Business people already feel confident and we heard the reports earlier this week on confidence in the tourism sector. If we work hard and use our resources - the landscape, our people and our ability to work hard - and if there is a positive, partnership approach taken by the Government, the future is bright. However, it will not be easy.