Feargal Quinn (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with everyone else who has wished us all a very successful new year. Obviously, it will be shorter than in previous times.

I am impressed by some figures that have been given to me for visa length and tourist numbers. I grew up in the tourist business and believe we have not done enough to encourage tourism. Ireland is losing potentially hundreds of thousands of tourists compared to other countries. Schengen countries such as France attract many more tourists, for instance from China, as it is much easier for tourists to visit such countries. In Ireland holiday visas are only granted for short stays and never exceed 90 days. If we were to increase visa length, we would cut down on red tape and paperwork and encourage more people to visit. It would make sense to increase the length of visas, perhaps not to ten years as happens in the United States but to a period that would result in a decrease in red tape and an increase in tourist numbers. We also need to think about reducing the overall paperwork involved. A lot could be done on that basis.

The other issue being talked about today and which is on everyone's mind is flooding. We should look at a clean-up of rivers which contain masses of rubbish. It would have a massive benefit for the environment and also help tourism. There is potential for schoolchildren and volunteers to become involved. I will quote from an article in a British paper on a massive ongoing project in the United Kingdom which is experiencing great success:

There were shopping trolleys galore, of course, including 24 in a Sheffield lock alone; countless bikes and hundreds of tyres. Thousands of plastic bags, umpteen gas bottles, several car batteries and other debris were among the other objects removed from rivers, canals, locks and bridges during clear up operations across England and Wales by the Canal & River Trust.

The article in The Guardianis entitled, From a hand grenade to a Mercedes. It actually found a hand grenade dating from the Second World War in the clean-up of rivers and it still had the pin in it. We should not just ask the Government to do this, we should also encourage it to see what we could do in local areas to have rivers tidied up to help in the battle against floods.