Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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Question 777: To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he has made any progress in relation to a company (details supplied) bringing an extra five million passengers to Ireland. [10845/12]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The Government's 2011 Jobs Initiative included a three-pronged plan to enhance overseas access and thereby promote inbound tourism through:

· abolishing the travel tax conditional on clear commitments by airlines to increase inbound capacity from our source markets;

· the introduction of a new growth incentive scheme by the Dublin Airport Authority; and

· more targeted co-operative marketing of new routes from key source tourism markets by Tourism Ireland, DAA and the airlines to encourage more tourists to fly into Ireland.

Subsequently, the Government agreed, in the absence of a sufficient response from the airlines, to retain the air travel tax and to avail of part of the receipts from its retention to fund additional cooperative marketing activities. A €9 million overseas tourism marketing campaign over the 2011/12 Autumn/Winter period was led by Tourism Ireland, inclusive of matching funding provided by partner companies, including Ryanair, Aer Lingus and Aer Arann, overseas airlines, tour operators and online travel agents, and ferry companies.

This initiative is not about one airline; the Government would like to see efforts made by all airlines serving the Irish market to increase capacity on inbound routes from key tourism markets. While there has been some progress on additional access for summer season 2012, the Government is closely monitoring the capacity being made available and will decide whether to retain or abolish the travel tax.

It should be noted that an additional 5 million passenger journeys through State Airports is not the same as 5 million additional inbound tourists.