Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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371. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the status of the work her Department is undertaking to support the tourism sector as a result of Covid-19; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21970/21]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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I am committed to continuing support for tourism through this difficult period and to working towards the reopening and recovery of the sector. Together with horizontal measures introduced by Government, such as the EWSS and the CRSS, the sector-specific measures I have introduced to date, including the Tourism Business Continuity Scheme, the schemes for Inbound Tour Operators and Coach Tourism Operators, the Covid Adaptation Scheme, and the Outdoor Dining Scheme are key in helping tourism businesses to survive and adapt.

The Tourism Recovery Taskforce presented the Tourism Recovery Plan 2020 – 2023 to me on September 30th last. The Plan makes a number of recommendations to help tourism businesses to survive, stabilise and recover from the COVID pandemic. Those recommendations have provided significant input into Government deliberations in considering measures to assist the sector.

The Tourism Recovery Oversight Group presented its first report to me in February, setting out progress to date in the implementation of the Tourism Recovery Plan, as well as areas it identified as requiring attention. The Oversight Group noted and welcomed the progress that has been made to date, both in terms of the broader employee and business supports and the tourism-specific measures I have introduced. The reports produced by the Group can be accessed on www.gov.ie/tourismrecoverytaskforce.

I continue to engage with the sector on a regular basis and in particular through the Hospitality and Tourism Forum. This forum was established by the Tánaiste and I last year in order to provide a platform to assess the continuing impact of the pandemic, to help improve understanding and responses to the crisis and to discuss ideas for recovery measures, thus assisting the Government in formulating its on-going response to the crisis. The Forum has met three times to date and is scheduled to meet for the fourth time next month.

As part of the National Economic Recovery Plan, Government will be outlining how it will help people return to work and further support sectors which have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Along with my colleagues in Government, I will consider more targeted measures to help reboot those sectors, such as tourism, which will face particular challenges during the recovery phase when the economy reopens.