Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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83. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment to outline his engagements with the Central Statistics Office, Fáilte Ireland and other stakeholders, regarding data collection on the number of overnight foreign resident visitors to Ireland. [33191/25]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The Central Statistics Office (CSO) is Ireland’s national statistical institute with responsibility for publishing independent statistics on important economic sectors including tourism. This includes a monthly release giving information on the number of overseas visitors to Ireland. The most recent monthly figures were published by the CSO on 29^th May and gave details of overseas visitors to Ireland in April 2025. The data showed a 4% reduction in the number of overseas visitors in April 2025 compared to the corresponding month in 2024. It should be noted however, that comparing April 2025 to April 2023, visitor numbers were up by 14% while associated revenue also showed a slight increase.

My Department has supported ongoing engagement between the tourism agencies (Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland), the tourism industry and the CSO. This has included engagement on the methodology and interpretation of the Inbound Tourism data as well as the sharing of data from industry sources. The most recent such engagement took place on the 29^th May and further engagement is envisaged for the weeks ahead.

In relation to longer term policy, the Tourism Policy Framework 2025 – 2030 was published by the previous Government last November. I have asked my officials to consider how commitments in the Programme for Government align with the Policy Framework and to prioritise the finalisation of a new Tourism Policy which reflects the Programme and other Government priorities. This new Policy Statement will also consider how to provide for ongoing structured engagement between industry and the relevant agencies in relation to tourism statistics.