Micheál Carrigy (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister on her appointment and look forward to working with her in the coming years in her various briefs. I have been chairman of the County Longford tourism committee for seven years and have been involved in developing the product in our county, which had the lowest tourism numbers for many years. I was heavily involved in the development of the start of the Royal Canal, which next summer will run the whole way from Spencer Dock to Cloondara in Longford. We hope it will be as successful as the Waterford greenway has been for tourism in the south east. We were low in numbers but we developed a strategy and employed a tourism officer, and we are working to develop the product we have.

Needless to say, the opening of Center Parcs has done wonders for us as a county, through not only promoting the area but also providing more than 1,000 jobs and increased sales in the ancillary businesses throughout that area of south Longford and the wider midlands. I take this opportunity to wish Daragh Feighery and his team well. Tomorrow will be the first anniversary of the opening of Center Parcs. We had a meeting at 9 o'clock this morning with the County Longford tourism committee, of which Daragh is a member. The park has reopened its spa and sub-tropical swimming area to guests. The numbers are up and Daragh is quite positive about the prospects of people coming to stay and holiday in Longford.

I am also involved in our new brand, the Hidden Heartlands, as was the former Minister of State, Kevin Boxer Moran. We always believed we needed a product to promote us and we relied on Ireland's Ancient East for a number of years, which was not a natural fit. I take this opportunity to thank Paddy Matthews, Sarah McCarthy and the team involved in that who do tremendous work in promoting the midlands as a brand.

Economically, tourism was hit immediately when Covid-19 came and it will be the last sector to recover. I thank the Minister, her officials and the Government for recognising this and introducing the ten measures that were announced in the July stimulus plan last week, such as the business adaptation grant of €26 million and the coach tourism continuity scheme, which was raised in the House by Senator McGahon last week. I have family involved in that industry and it has been decimated, not just in terms of school transport but also because there are virtually no coach tours.However, I am feeling positive for 2021. Many tours that were cancelled, especially coming from America, have not looked for refunds but want to move their bookings on to 2021. That is positive for the year ahead if we keep going well with regard to Covid-19. The stay and spend initiative is fantastic. It is incumbent on all Members to holiday in Ireland, promote the fact that we have stayed in the country and give something back into our economy. The Minister said she was going on holidays in Ireland. She is more than welcome to come to Longford. It is not far away from her home county of Monaghan in Ireland's Hidden Heartlands.

I refer to the wage scheme and restart grant. Issues around some of the schemes have been brought to my attention by people involved in the sector. A number of businesses or tourist centres are not rateable for the purposes of the restart grant. Some are run by voluntary agencies, such as the Maria Edgeworth centre in Edgeworthstown in my own home county, which is backed by Fáilte Ireland but run by a voluntary committee. It has no visitors but it is not open to the committee to apply for a restart grant due to the fact that the centre is not rateable. On the credit guarantee and rates waiver schemes, the rates waiver scheme is only available to bed and breakfast accommodation that is registered with Fáilte Ireland. A large number are not registered with Fáilte Ireland for whatever reason, although I believe all should be. They are not eligible to apply even though they are in the industry. There are only ten in my county. On tax refunds, are income tax relief and tax warehousing enough? We also need guidelines for businesses with regard to people coming into the country. In a restaurant in Galway that is full of local people, if two international people come in, how do we know they have self-isolated? Can the person refuse to allow them to come in if they have not? These guidelines need to be put there for the people in the industry.

Tourism is at the core of our economy and it is extremely important that it is rebuilt and developed throughout the regions. As a Government, we need to continue to support it throughout the crisis and into 2021 and beyond. We need to look at areas where the bed nights are not up. The recent Fáilte Ireland figures state that they are up in the rural areas but the cities are still down. I think they are down around 30% in Dublin with the lack of conference centres. We need to look at those figures and consider an increased suite of funding for them.

Is Fáilte Ireland committed and is the funding for the capital projects that it started with to continue? I think of the Knights and Conquests Heritage Centre and the Norman heritage village in Granard, County Longford, which is a €4 million project. They only dug ground last week. I want a commitment that the funding is there for those projects to be finished out. We also have the mid-Shannon wilderness park which has been proposed for the boglands in south Longford as part of the just transition. Will that funding be in place going forward?

I look forward to working with the Minister in supporting tourism throughout the crisis, implementing the stimulus package and providing a new stimulus where it is needed as part of the national economic plan. A VAT reduction is extremely important to the industry. It worked in 2010 and I feel it will work again. It needs to be considered. I concur with Senator Cassells with regard to the limits at sporting events. I am also involved in the GAA. For local club games in my own county at the weekend they had to sell tickets online for people to be able to go to games. The limit of 200 is incorrect. A GAA field perimeter is 500 m and 240 people can stand 2 m apart outside the playing area. That really needs to be looked at to increase it to 500 or at a minimum that the 200 would not include the people on the field. It would allow more people to go to our games. My brief covers arts, media, tourism and sport. I look forward to working with the Minister and wish her well.