Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)
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341. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will report on her recent visit to New York; and the companies and-or officials she spoke to during her trip. [55335/22]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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My recent trip to New York was Culture, Tourism and Media-led and involved a series of important meetings and events directly relevant to my portfolio. New York is a key strategic location for the promotion of Ireland through culture and tourism and is an important centre to engage with the Irish Diaspora in the US.

I met the Consul General of Ireland and other staff at the Consulate including Ireland's Cultural Officer based in New York. The work done by the Consul General and her staff is vital not only to the diaspora but also the millions of New Yorkers who have Irish ancestry and also to the many Irish artists and tourists who travel through New York each year.

With the Consul General, I also visited the Aisling Community and Cultural Center in Yonkers, where young people, and adults were participating in a wide range of Irish traditional arts. The Center is led by Sandra Feeney Charles and delivers a wide range of social and cultural services to the Irish community in New York.

I accepted an invitation from the Irish Arts Center to attend their 50th Anniversary Fund Raising dinner. This event, led by the Chair, is fundamental to supporting the operation of the Center which works in partnership with Culture Ireland to support opportunities for Irish artists to reach new audiences in the United States. I had the pleasure of visiting the new facility and seeing an exhibition of works by the acclaimed visual artist Maud Cotter, inspired by the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. I also met the Center’s Executive Director and Director of Programming and Education to hear about the exciting programme of events planned for 2023, to receive feedback on the operation of the new Center which has received significant Government support in line with the Center's strategic importance under Global Ireland, and to discuss plans for Phase II of the development.

I visited Ireland House to meet officials from Tourism Ireland's United States team to discuss their work on promoting Ireland as a holiday destination.

Rebuilding the inbound tourism market from the US will be critical for our tourism industry and, in this context, I also took part in a business roundtable meeting with key travel trade, carrier and media contacts in the US. The increased funding secured for overseas tourism marketing in Budget 2022 has enabled Tourism Ireland to undertake its biggest ever programme of promotional activity in the US this year. In particular, given the unique relationship between Ireland and the US, travel to Ireland provides the opportunity for many Americans to research their Irish heritage and ancestry.

I also visited the New York Times and met with a Limerick-born senior story producer with the paper’s Pulitzer Award winning Virtual Investigations Team to hear his insights into their ground-breaking coverage, including of events in the war in Ukraine as well as into the media landscape in the United States.

The US and in particular, New York, is of strategic importance to Ireland in terms of promoting the country as a tourist destination and for the promotion of Irish arts.