Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with whoever needs it. The Leas-Chathaoirleach can work it out because I am using time already.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire agus tá súil agam go n-éireoidh go breá léi sa portfolio suimiúil atá aici. I wish the Minister well. She has a comprehensive portfolio and will be seeing a bit of me on the tourism side. I play second fiddle to Senator Cassells and have an interest in tourism.

I will cut out all the statistics I had prepared because the House heard them from the Minister, who has the brief. The great success story in this country for the past two decades has been tourism. Every year we have seen increased figures, increased employment, new projects and a great deal of excitement and growth in that area. It is impossible to quantify the added value of that for the country, whether in terms of transport, online sales or foreign direct investment, which is often located here because the investors have previously come here as tourists. I have met more than one person who fits into that category. Another benefit relates to aviation.

Tourism is big business. The Green Party is very interested in renewables, and tourism is renewable and inexhaustible. It is an asset that will never run out because it is based on our natural resources, the beauty of our landscape, our history, our culture, our music and our welcome. The much-hackneyed céad míle fáilte is a significant factor in making Ireland premier in world tourism.Counties such as Kerry and Galway, which have been major leaders in tourism, are now the ones that will be crippled by it, unfortunately. I hope there will be some form of regional examination of how we will deploy funds to help particularly the counties that depend so greatly on tourism. The biggest tragedy I have seen in a long time is the holding of the Galway Races to an empty stand yesterday. At the end of September - I am from Listowel - we will witness the same situation. It is heartbreaking. Covid has changed everything utterly, and there is not much beauty in it.

I welcome the stimulus plan. I will not go through it. I would like to talk about one or two items in particular. I am glad to see that the coach operators will be helped. I would like that knocked on not so much to taxi drivers in the country but to hackney drivers and chauffeurs. We have a number of them operating from the airports, and there is so little business for them. I welcome the stay-and-spend initiative. It has been mocked a small bit. I think it is good. Anyone going out to spend a long weekend with his or her spouse or to bring the family away to a resort for a week in October will get a bit of a bonus out of it. The money will be spent anyway. It will go around.

I give my full praise to the people working in the sector. They are all working hard at compliance. There is an imaginative approach going on. I holidayed abroad: I have just come back from Valentia Island, which, as the Minister will be aware, is the most beautiful, undeveloped place in Ireland. Members really should go there. I will not belabour the point. The people there are working so hard. There are small restaurants and hotels. They are trying their best to comply, with big smiles on their faces. Everybody is pulling together. If I have one gripe, it is against the politicians and protest parties, and they are in a minority, that seem to be getting pleasure out of picking holes in whatever is going on with the Government's dealing with Covid. That is not going down well with the people. I can tell them that straight away.