Shane Cassells (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House to discuss this issue. I also welcome her officials. The Minister is a regular attendee in this Chamber.

Before I address the matters the Minister has spoken about, I want to raise an issue affecting the crossover between tourism and sport, given that the 70th hosting of the Rás Tailteann began in the town of Navan yesterday. This is a significant event from the point of view of both sport and tourism. It is going to bring a lot of colour and excitement to many towns across the island and for those lucky enough to be in the towns it passes through, I ask them to come out and encourage it. It is an amazing event that started off yesterday morning and I thank the Department for its support of that.

Senators Malcolm Byrne, Carrigy and I are members of the Joint Committee on Tourism, Culture, Arts, Sport and Media. Nothing is debated more in that committee than tourism, rightly so, given it is worth over €10 billion to the economy. However, there are so many different aspects that we literally have it on the agenda every single month, whether it be accommodation, prices, the VAT issue, skills shortages, reports into working conditions in the sector, the growth in the number of visitors or short-term lets, and last week we discussed rural tourism. My point is that it is a tapestry. In that context, we are certainly not going to shoehorn into an hour-long discussion here everything we want to say about a matter that the committee debates literally all the time and that the Minister debates every single day.

There are a number of key points pertaining to this debate in terms of the value to the economy from a spending and economic value point of view, and the value of jobs created in the sector. There is also the issue of our international reputation, which I want to touch on, and which is something that Paul Kelly, the CEO of Fáilte Ireland, has spoken about extensively at our committee, given that over 70% of spend by visitors to this country is generated from international tourism. Then there is domestic tourism, and the Minister talked about the fact the domestic tourism aspect is now worth up to €3 billion. However, there is a huge issue in terms of value for money for those domestic consumers that I have stressed consistently at the committee.

The Minister has done substantial work on promoting and protecting the sector but we then come down to the players in the sector - those making a living in the sector. We had a very robust committee debate at the end of March where people from the sector, such as the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation, Fáilte Ireland and those in accommodation, came before us. I did not like the approach that was brought forward at that meeting and, in particular, I had an exchange with Eoghan O'Mara Walsh, who spoke there - we discussed VAT - but was nearly giving us a warning in terms of rising prices this summer. I do not do threats, and I do not like talk of that nature either. We had all of the sector in the committee before Christmas. We pleaded the case with the Minister and with the Minister for Finance to make sure that the 9% was retained to help and promote tourism, and that was acceded to. Then, fast forward a couple of months, and the same protagonists are in before us at committee, warning of the impact of rising prices this summer. The only people who have been impacted by that are in the domestic tourism market because international visitors had their bookings made last autumn to come to Ireland and they secured good prices. However, the 30% who are domestic tourists, who may be only booking around now for the tourist season, are the ones impacted by this.

Of course, I accept that if there is an extraction of hotel beds from the marketplace, that is going to have an impact on price. However, to give some perspective, it is also worth pointing out that we have had a growth in bedrooms in Dublin from 22,000 to 26,000 this year, which is 4,000 additional bedrooms, yet Dublin is the one place where value for money seems to be gone out the window. That point has to be made.I have discussed this from a rural point of view with Mr. Paul Kelly of Fáilte Ireland. He is concerned, and I think the Minister, Deputy Martin, is too, as we are, about the challenges we face for the coming season and in particular for rural tourism economies. A huge number of hotels and accommodation services in rural areas have been taken by the Department for use to deal with the challenges in accommodating international migrants. The impact is on the wider tourism market. As Mr. Kelly said, if bars, retail and the transport providers in these towns go out of business, how long is it going to be until they are built back up? He said:

We learned during Covid-19 that it is not possible to turn tourism off like a tap, and turn it back on again afterwards.

[...]

There are certain towns where almost 100% of the accommodation is gone to Government contracts and because the visitors will not be there, those towns will struggle to get back to being vibrant tourism destinations in the future.

He is the CEO of Fáilte Ireland, and it is something we have to take very seriously. I know the Minister does, and I would be pleased to hear her comments on that as well.