Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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853. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if State tourism bodies such as Fáilte Ireland will be working to assist hospitality businesses to reopen in line with best practice Covid-19 guidelines. [10999/20]

Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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The Government has put in place a number of supports to help businesses deal with the current crisis and many tourism enterprises are now availing these various cross-sectoral economic supports.

In order to support business in the tourism and hospitality sector, Fáilte Ireland has set up a COVID-19 Industry Advisory Group which meets weekly. The purpose of this group is to provide support to the tourism industry and to facilitate the timely sharing of information and insights to help improve the sector's understanding and response to the crisis. Fáilte Ireland has also developed a COVID-19 Business Support Hub which offers a suite of targeted supports for tourism businesses including a series of webinars from experts in each field, as well as advice guides with detailed FAQs and templates where necessary.

To assist tourism businesses reopening in line with the Government’s Roadmap for Reopening Society and Business, Fáilte Ireland published guidelines for the tourism sector, prepared in consultation with the tourism industry and relevant authorities.  These guidelines are intended to assist tourism businesses meet requirements in line with the Return to Work Safely protocol and based on the latest health advice. 

Following the development of the new guidelines for safe re-opening, Fáilte Ireland is working with tourism businesses to support them to determine the capacity of their business and the financial implications of this new operating model. A new suite of financial recovery supports, a ‘Calculating Capacity’ tool and supports around HR for re-opening are now available on the COVID-19 Business Support Hub.