Seanad debates

Wednesday, 17 May 2017

10:30 am

Photo of Catherine NooneCatherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to highlight a very interesting voluntary project conducted in Kilkenny, where communities are connected with people abroad of Irish descent who are interested in genealogy tourism. Last year, 22 genealogy tourists came to Kilkenny as a direct result of one person in the locality taking a simple and painless saliva test, which in some cases costs as little as €50. In the coming months, the project is expecting five different groups of people to come from Canada and stay in Kilkenny for over a week. I believe there is potential for DNA genealogy to be used on a larger scale as a broader tourism initiative.

One idea could be to subsidise the refund of a DNA test cost if a visit is made by an individual or group. Alternatively, funding could be provided to offer a free DNA test to a number of suitable people in each village, connecting them via DNA to the wider diaspora globally. We are doing very well in tourism overall but genealogy tourism is an added area we could publicise more heavily and I would like the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to consider incentivising foreign visitors who wish to discover more of their heritage, or companies who wish to avail of such a service.

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