Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As John B. Keane said, it is an awful responsibility to be a Kerryman. On the question of regionalisation, 40% of our tourism is made up of the Dublin market while the next strongest is the south west, with 19%, while the west is at 13% and the poor north west is at about 5%, which I cannot understand. I know that infrastructure and bad roads are a reason and I was pretty shocked at how long it took me to get back to Dublin from Ballina recently, where I had been attending a funeral. We have to watch that because tourism needs to be spread over the whole country.

The overpricing of hotels in Dublin is atrocious, especially when there is a big event on in Croke Park or the O2. We are putting ourselves out of the market and will kill the goose that lays the golden egg. Finally, I ask the Minister to continue to ensure we have the skills we need. There was a shortage of 5,000 chefs at the last count and we have a shortage of training kitchens, something which hotel managers tell us when we go out for a meal at night.