Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the proposals, if any, there are to expand ferry capacity between Ireland and Britain; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15881/13]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland is already well serviced in terms of ferry connectivity as the market offers a diverse range of viable maritime links in and out of the State.  There are currently six shipping lines providing passenger services, with approximately 500 sailings weekly between Ireland and Britain and continental Europe, depending on the time of year. All ferry companies servicing these routes are commercial companies and, as such, their services are market driven. 

My Department through its agency, the IMDO, works closely with all existing operators and continues to promote Ireland as a location for new services. Any new services must be market driven. Competition in the sector is encouraged and to date ferry operators have responded to market developments and increased capacity, when required.

While the vast majority of our overseas visitors arrive in Ireland by air, research has shown that visitors coming to Ireland by car are very important to our tourism industry as they tend to stay longer, they tend to tour around more and they tend to spend more than those arriving by air. Accordingly, the state tourism agencies have continually targeted this segment.

As the Deputy will be aware, this is a particularly important year for Irish tourism with The Gathering Ireland 2013 now underway and over 3,000 individual gatherings confirmed on the Gathering website. The overall target is to attract at least 325,000 extra overseas visits to Ireland in 2013. Tourism Ireland continues to mount a major consumer campaign to promote The Gathering and in this regard the agency is undertaking co-operative activity with the ferry operators to highlight the value fares that are on offer. This activity will continue through 2013.