Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

From the contributions the Minister of State has listened to over the past two hours, in particular from Government Senators, he will have a sense of the passion and anger felt about this matter. I support and commend Senator Casey, as someone with professional experience at the very core of this industry which has been hit so badly. Decisions by government in any sphere should support the industry and not hurt it further. If something that has been working for three decades is still working, why try to fix it or hinder it in this respect?

Tourism has been held up as a shining light by successive governments as something we do well. People come here because we market our country on the international stage, highlighting its natural beauty and so forth. However, for tourists, cash is king. They make decisions before they travel as to what will hit them in the pocket and where they get best bang for their buck when they go to a particular country. Senator Casey is right in pointing out that this is a determining factor. I also agree with Senator Wall that exact science should be used when assessing any new measure. I am a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Media, Tourism, Arts, Culture, Sport and the Gaeltacht. Yesterday Paul Kelly, chief executive of Fáilte Ireland, appeared before the committee. He said:

...the severity and longevity of public health restrictions mean that for many businesses the current level of support is not going to be enough. We have already seen some insolvencies and we are likely to see a rapid acceleration in this after Christmas...

We know tourist numbers will be down and we want to incentivise those who might come. However, here we have a measure with the exact opposite effect.

Earlier there was a defence put up of the Government's halfway measure to reduce the threshold. Senator Chambers is correct that it was a hames in the first place. The gurus in the Department of Finance realised they made a mistake. I support what Senator Chambers said. I support in particular Senator Casey's amendment. I urge the Government to listen to the very strong message being conveyed in this Chamber this afternoon.