Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)
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Question 83: To ask the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism her strategy to attract high profile international events, particularly sports events to the country, similar to the Volvo Ocean Race, which will return to Ireland in 2012; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14011/10]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The International Sports Tourism Initiative, which is administered by Fáilte Ireland, was set up in 2000 to support the attraction to Ireland of major international sporting events, with tourism potential. Since 2000 more than 160 events have been supported by this initiative representing an investment of over €50m. The events targeted have the ability to generate significant numbers of international visitors to Ireland and/or extensive international media coverage.

Key events supported in the past have been the Tour de France (1998), the Special Olympics (2003), the Ryder Cup (2006), two rounds of the World Rally Championships (2007 and 2009), the Volvo Ocean Race (2009) as well as annual sponsorship of the Irish and the European Golf Open Tournaments for over ten years. The Solheim Cup which is scheduled to take place in Killeen Castle, Co. Meath in 2011 is also being supported under the initiative.

All proposals under the International Sports Tourism initiative are subject to an assessment by Fáilte Ireland of the costs/benefits involved in the provision of State financial support and the impact in terms of international media coverage and/or incremental international visitors.

The Deputy will be aware that the Government provided €8m towards the 2009 Volvo Ocean Race Galway stopover. The stopover and its associated festival events, proved very popular and successful with significant economic impact. The Government recently committed €4 million in support of Irish promoters, Let's Do it Global's bid for Galway to host a port stopover in the forthcoming 2011 – 2012 Volvo Ocean Race. That bid was successful and Galway will in fact host the finale of the 2011-2012 event.

The Galway stopover is a hugely important win for Ireland. It is estimated that 87,000 people visited the Galway region during last year's stopover and that it had a massive €56 million economic impact on Galway and the West of Ireland. Hosting the race enabled us to showcase Galway and the West of Ireland to a television audience of some 1. 3 billion people around the world - an incredible marketing opportunity. The 2011 – 2012 race could well exceed this performance because this time, Galway is the finishing port and the final prize-giving will be held there.