Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I listened very carefully to Senator Barrett and the points he made are worth considering. He is clearly saying that there should be a cost benefit analysis not only before but after the money has been spent. We have to be very careful in this area. We do not want to discourage entrepreneurship and to discourage a person who says "I have an idea; I think it can work; let's have a go". There will be failures and there will be occasions where a business decision does not work. Let us not then decide that heads must roll. If we are to run tourism like a business, there will be failures, so let us not be afraid to go back later and ask if we got good value for money. If it was not good value for money, we can at least identify the problem to help us not make that mistake again. The wording that Senator Barrett uses in his recommendation is:

(b) if the published appraisal in paragraph (a) indicates that the benefits do not exceed the costs of the proposed expanded allocation, the existing allocation will be maintained.".

That seems to be a very sensible business. I will just touch on this point. In a business one takes chances, if one has an idea. It may not work but one tries it out. Every now and then one gets a great success and every now and then one gets a great failure as well. One has to be willing to look back and say it was worthwhile doing it. I was chairman of An Post for some years. I remember making a proposal on one occasion and the traditional civil servant said that we could not do that. On 10 January 1984, a proposal was made to have a St. Patrick's Day card that was already stamped and could be sent all around the world. I went to the former civil servants in An Post with the idea. They thought it was a good idea and agreed to come back with prototypes by mid March. I replied that St. Patrick's Day is in mid March. They asked: "Chairman, you did not mean this year, did you?" In fact we did manage to get prototypes and printers in three days but we did not go out and do all the traditional things. We sold 4 million cards and it worked very well. That was an idea that worked but we had others that failed dismally. In tourism and certainly in the case Senator Barrett has made, it is fair to say that there will be mistakes. Let us not be shy about making those mistakes. We ensure that we do the cost benefit analysis beforehand and then look back at it afterwards and ask if it worked. If it did not work, we have learned from it and will not make the same mistake again.