Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Senator Blaney. I thank the Minister and welcome her to the House. I will leave all the statistics and formalities. The Minister's is the single most important Department for us as a country to express who we are and who we wish to become. I look forward to the Minister's term of office and the progress she will make in ensuring a diverse, sustainable and inclusive tourism sector.

I want to raise a few passion projects of mine. Senator Boyhan might not like this but I will speak of what I know. I hope the Minister might take a few things into consideration when looking at the next stage of our tourism and cultural economy. The North-South aspect of our tourism sector needs to be looked at. We have significant commonalities across the regions of Dundalk and Newry, all along our east coast and all around our country. By working together these regions will get stronger and benefit from a cross-Border emphasis. We need to look more closely at building the Narrow Water bridge. We must look to the Cooleys, Mournes and Slieve Gullion as a marketable project and start thinking of Carlingford Lough as one area to maximise the great potential we have in north Louth and south Down. This concept should be replicated right across the Border region.

One positive aspect of our lockdown was that people exploring within their 2 km and 5 km radius saw for the first time all that they have at their back doors. No matter where we come from on this island we have a wealth of nature, culture, folklore and history at our fingertips. It costs us nothing to stop and listen to the water in the streams or the birds or even to read the plaques on the buildings that mark a bit of history. I would like to see the Department coming up with an initiative for getting to know one's own area, making it a marketing ambition for a local area to be able to highlight what it has. This would be a nationwide project to encourage all to embrace what our localities have, a history that is untapped and unappreciated in many instances. That history can be developed and mapped so we can have a database and a proper roadmap to our history and culture.

For example, I refer to the Battle of Faughart, also known as the Battle of Dundalk, in 1318. It was very significant battle in the Irish Bruce wars and it ended, for the time being, King Robert the Bruce's attempt to open a second front against the English in the battle to win Scottish independence. This massively significant part of Irish-Scottish history is sitting there waiting to be explored. Another example is how the Knights Templar set up in the Cooley Peninsula, with Templetown named after them. They provided safe passage for pilgrims coming from Ulster and leaving at Kilwirra church in Templetown to complete the Camino in Spain. People can get their Camino passports stamped in the oldest church in the Archdiocese of Armagh, in St. James's church in Grange, County Louth.

We have the most beautiful biodiversity in this country. We should be examining the possibility of biodiversity tourism. I think of the humble and magical hawthorn tree that supports 200 different insect species and our unique heathers in the Cooley Mountains. This is all untapped opportunity for healthy, positive, sustainable tourism.