I move:—
Go ndeontar suim ná raghaidh thar £3,500 chun íoctha an Mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníoctha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31adh lá de Mhárta, 1940, chun Deontas-igCabhair ar Bhord Chuartaíochta na hEireann (Uimh. 24 de 1939).
That a sum not exceeding £3,500 be granted to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending 31st March, 1940, for a Grant-in-Aid of the Irish Tourist Board (No. 24 of 1939).
Perhaps in introducing this Estimate it would be advisable that I should detail to the House how the position stands at the moment in regard to the operation of the Tourist Traffic Act and the activities and functions of the Irish Tourist Board. The House will recall that the Tourist Traffic Act was enacted at the end of July, 1939. That Act provides for the payment of grants and advances out of public funds to the Irish Tourist Board which is constituted by the Act. Section 15 of the Act provides for the payment out of voted moneys of sums not exceeding £45,000 in any one financial year to the board in the form of non-repayable grants. Section 16 provides for the making of advances to the board out of the Central Fund to an amount not exceeding in the aggregate £600,000, which sum is to be expended by the board solely on works, investments, or loans of a profit-earning character. It was estimated that of the free grant at the rate of £45,000 per annum to which I have referred, £20,000 would be required for administrative expenses and £25,000 for advertising and publicity.
The Irish Tourist Board having been duly constituted, it was necessary during the Summer Recess to provide funds to pay the remuneration of the members of the board and the preliminary administrative expenses. Accordingly, an advance of £2,000 was made to the board from the Contingency Fund, the intention being to introduce an Additional Estimate for the new service when the Dáil would have reassembled last October. The war intervened, however, and naturally the question arose as to whether or not the Tourist Traffic Act should be suspended for so long as the Emergency Powers Act remained in force. After mature consideration it was decided that while in present circumstances it was, for financial reasons, perhaps undesirable and, for other reasons, perhaps impracticable for the board to proceed with its original programme, involving the Exchequer, as I have said, in an annual Grant-in-Aid of about £45,000 and imposing on the Exchequer the obligation of making repayable advances up to a maximum of £600,000; nevertheless, it was felt it would be a grave mistake to suspend the operation of the Act altogether and to put it in cold-storage for the duration of the war. I think in the present circumstances it would be folly to undertake that widespread publicity campaign and other activities which were contemplated when the Act was passed. But it would be equally foolish now when the competitive attractions of other countries have greatly diminished, while at the same time, the regular volume of traffic from external resources has been automatically reduced not to utilise this period to survey thoroughly the situation as a whole; to prepare plans for the future of the industry and to try out those plans on an experimental scale, so that when the time becomes more propitious the board may be able to go ahead with its estimates for the fulfilling of the work allotted to it under the Act.
That is the decision at which we have arrived, The original estimate of £45,000 will not be required. Only a sum of £9,000 will be wanted now. In order to enable certain experimental projects to be undertaken, it may be necessary later on to provide sums aggregating from £60,000 to £70,000. How much will be required for the repayable advances will naturally depend upon the duration of the war and upon the success or otherwise of the experimental projects. If these justify themselves it may be assumed that they will be enlarged and the expenditure upon them naturally will increase. During the period of the survey, planning and experimentation to which I have referred, it is the intention of the members of the board to give the closest personal attention to the work and to share a large part of the administrative burdens between them. Consequently the staff required will be the minimum possible; and such as will be recruited will be required to have certain technical experience. The chairman of the board will act as secretary, and chief executive officer, and in this way no salary will be payable for these offices. In this way it is hoped to get a great deal of valuable public work done at a minimum of expense.
The question may naturally arise, why under present circumstances are we spending £9,000 per annum upon work of this kind? There are some considerations in that regard which it may be well to put before the public eye. First of all, we have to remember that expenditure on public holidays in this country runs into millions of pounds per annum. This money finds its way to all parts of the country and to all classes of our people. Hotels and boarding-houses on which depends the livelihood of more than 20,000 souls along the seaboards are almost entirely dependent upon this traffic for their existence. In many Gaeltacht areas the tourist traffic provides the income for hundreds if not for thousands of non-economic landholders. The receipts from this industry are of vital importance, too, to public transport and other contributory services. The industry itself is a decentralised industry, requiring no imported raw materials or factories or the congregating of the population into abnormally large communities. The industry contributes substantially to general and local taxation; directly through fishing and shooting licences, visa fees, driving licences, and so on, and indirectly through increases in fees and incomes from fishery rights, and so on. The guaranteeing of its maintenance by the State during the present war emergency is almost as essential in counties like Kerry, Donegal and Galway as is the guaranteeing of minimum prices for beet and wheat in many of the inland counties.
The holiday habit, I may say, is now regarded not so much a luxury as a necessity. The fostering of its further growth is a matter of great social importance to the State and to the community as a whole. There are still thousands of Dublin workers who, instead of spending their savings at the week-ends with nothing more to show at the end of the summer than a number of Sunday trips to neighbouring seaside resorts, ought to be educated for the sake of their own and their children's health to save up for holidays which would give them a chance of having enjoyable holidays amidst extremely healthy surroundings. The war has limited us to a virtual monopoly of our own home traffic as against the loss of the American and the greater portion of the British tourist traffic. Because of these facts we can assume that practically all our own people will spend their holidays in Ireland during the present year. If they get satisfactory treatment, that alone will induce many of them to continue to take Irish holidays. The passage of the Tourist Traffic Act in itself was an admission of the Government's interest and responsibility in this matter. The suspension of the Act and the dissolution of the Board would now virtually black-out the holiday industry, and the Irish Tourist Association could not hope to continue the work that it has been doing up to the present.
The Irish Tourist Association obtains its money mainly from public bodies. It is doubtful whether these would continue to vote funds to continue its activities if the Government itself, by its suspension of the Tourist Traffic Act, indicated that the continuance of such activities was a matter of no concern to the State or to the community for whom the Government would be presumed to act. There is little doubt in my mind that if the existing machinery for the maintenance and development of the holiday industry were to be put out of action we would at the end of the war be back to the unorganised and comparatively impoverished position in which that industry found itself in 1925. I think there is no justification for taking a course which would be tantamount to suggesting that our holiday industry is at the moment of no value or that at the moment it is not of great potential value to the country. But the fact is that out of our total normal traffic over 70 per cent. of the volume and over 60 per cent. of the revenue may be said to come from our own people. The increase in that traffic arising from the fact that our people cannot go abroad will, if carefully conserved, ensure the survival and comparative prosperity of all engaged in the industry even during the war. The central organisation which here, as in all other countries, it has been found desirable to establish for the control and development of this industry is necessary, in my view, for the maintenance of the industry during the war and I am sure there will be few to question this in relation to the effective revival of our traffic from other countries on the return of international peace.
Of the activities in which the board proposes to engage during the period which must intervene between now and the days of peace, I shall endeavour to give a broad outline to the House. When the House hears it, I think it will agree with me that there a great deal of valuable work can be done even in the somewhat circumscribed circumstances in which the board finds itself. There is, in the first place, the question of our existing holiday resorts. As the main bulk of our holiday traffic is handled by these resorts, whether seaside or inland, they may be taken to rank as first in importance in the mind of the board. Most of those resorts are lacking in one or more of the services or general amenities recognised as essential for the holiday-maker of to-day. Every one of them requires planned reorganisation over a period of years, and their enlargement and improvement would normally absorb the greater portion of the £600,000 provided in the Act under the head of "Repayable Advances." Though it is not proposed, during the war-period, to go ahead with any schemes involving big expenditure, it is necessary in the first instance, to prepare a plan for the reorganisation and development of every resort of importance, keeping in mind the requirements of health and sanitation, enlarged traffic in future years, the safety and convenience of existing roads, the provision of adequate facilities for recreation and amusement for all classes in all weathers, the application of the Town and Regional Planning Act in co-operation with the local authorities and the increase of existing accommodation to suit the requirements of those classes of traffic which each resort is considered to be most capable of attracting and satisfying.
This will all take time. Provided money can be made available for the administrative expenses of the board, the importance and urgency of this work is in no way lessened by the existence of an international war. In every resort of that type I think I may say that the people concerned recognise the need for improvement. It is hoped that they will readily co-operate in this preliminary work, knowing that, after the war, the Tourist Board will be enabled to give effect to its plans. It is possible, therefore, to proceed at once with the correction of many abuses and to proceed with many minor but important improvement works at comparatively little expense by way of loan or investment. Many of the resorts to which I have referred are qualified for attention under the heading "Unemployment Relief Schemes". The Tourist Board is satisfied, from a preliminary survey, that in such cases it should be in a position to suggest works which will be, on the one hand, attractive from the point of view of such relief schemes and which, on the other hand, can be readily assimilated as part of its ultimate development plans. The Board in this connection has mentioned the excavation of sites for swimming pools, the clearing of ground and ruins as a first step towards the provision of handball alleys or other recreational facilities, the making or improving of paths, minor works of drainage and so on. Naturally, the future development of each resort must be planned before works of this kind are undertaken, and, during the war, it is proposed to incur expenditure by way of loan or investment only in those cases in which the expenditure of small sums, complementary to the money to be provided under the relief schemes, would render possible the immediate provision of essential amenities. We may envisage, perhaps, an expenditure of £10,000 during the experimental stage under this head.
In connection with the programme for developing holiday resorts, it will be necessary for the board to set up at every resort a council, committee or company of a representative nature. At many of the resorts in question there is no urban authority to ensure local goodwill and co-operation. Contact with such bodies is of vital importance to the work of the Tourist Board. It cannot be deferred until after the war. The development of these resorts may cost considerable sums spread over a long period, but, even under normal conditions, the board could not provide more than a fraction of the finance which would be required. The purpose and effect of the Board's efforts in this matter would be to encourage further expenditure of much greater magnitude by local authorities and by private enterprise. It is necessary now, and it would be part of the board's immediate duty, to convince those who may be concerned that such expenditure will be worth undertaking.
Next in line of the Tourist Board's activities will be the question of our hotels, their management and improvement. We need increased hotel accommodation in practically all parts of the country. Such hotels as we have are lacking even in matters of major importance. Many others require a complete overhaul. It is proposed to avail of the war period to examine, in the first place, the hotel resources of the country in relation to the types of traffic which it is considered desirable and possible to attract; secondly, to estimate on a five or ten year basis the conditions necessary for dealing with such traffic and to relate these to our existing resources, and thirdly, to decide on the best methods of securing these necessary conditions at the least expense to the board and with the least cost or inconvenience to those at present engaged in the hotel business.
It is not proposed, during the war period, to go ahead with any large-scale schemes by way of loan or investment. We must wait until the prospects of stimulating private enterprise are brighter than they are now before proceeding with such work. In the meantime, however, the board hopes, as I have said, to undertake the preparatory work and to consider in advance the cases in which loans or investments may be necessary or desirable and the conditions which should be attached to their provision. The shortcomings of our smaller hotels and guest-houses, catering for what might be called second-class traffic, represent probably our greatest source of complaint at the present time. In normal times a large volume of traffic goes from this country to the Isle of Man and to the British West Coast, because of the higher standard of accommodation which resorts there offer at competitive prices. A very large number of people who previously went abroad will take Irish holidays in 1940, and these people cannot be persuaded to continue "seeing Ireland first" unless we are able to bring about an improvement in the general standard of such establishments here. To that end we feel that the board should be enabled, in the year 1940-41, to provide, by way of loan, for improvements in a number of such houses in various parts of the country—not as even a partial solution of the main problem, but as examples which will encourage the adoption of a higher standard by others, and which will demonstrate the type of accommodation which it is hoped eventually to standardise and publicise as guest-houses. This category, it will be remembered, was specially defined in the Tourist Traffic Act with that end in view. It is anticipated that, perhaps, in the course of this preliminary campaign, the board may have to find, via the Exchequer, the sums necessary to finance repayable advances, totalling more than £25,000.
The next large division of this holiday industry, to which the Tourist Board will require to devote its attention and to which it intends to give a great deal of consideration during this emergency period, is that of hostels and holiday camps. We have not been able to have any extensive investigation of that matter yet, and of the problems which it may present. It is a new type of business in this country, and presents difficulties which require to be very carefully examined. With a holiday camp in the Isle of Man, capable of accommodating 4,000, and with another recently built in North Wales, at a cost of £500,000, it is obvious that group accommodation has attractions which we cannot ignore. The two establishments referred to are examples of the accommodation which we may anticipate will exist on the west coast of Britain after the war, and of the types of accommodation which, accordingly, in that period, our own resorts will have to face in competition. If we are to retain in Ireland the money spent by our industrial workers during the holidays, we must be able to compete with such places, and if we do not take steps during the war period we shall be late in the race when the war is over, and shall have no ground for complaint if the workers of Dublin and our other cities choose more attractive and less expensive fare offered elsewhere than in this country. It is the view of the board that it will be possible, within the coming financial year, to formulate a scheme for an experimental development under this head. If the board's expectations in this regard be fulfilled, we may require, during the year I have mentioned, 1940-41, a repayable advance of about £20,000. Naturally, in regard to this too, as with other activities of the board, the Minister for Finance, as well as the Minister for Industry and Commerce, will have to be satisfied that the advance can be justifiably and profitably made.
One of the principal functions of the Board, under the provisions of the Act, is to set up and to maintain a register of hotels and guest-houses. It is hoped that it may be possible to give effect to the provisions of the Tourist Traffic Act in this respect during the year 1940-41, and the board may find it necessary to engage a limited but technically competent staff for that purpose. On the other hand, it is not intended to operate the provisions of the Tourist Traffic Act for the scheduling of tourist resorts as special areas during the war period unless, of course, there is an overwhelming local demand in any resort for such action, but it will be necessary to study carefully the implications of the procedure and to work out, in relation to a few resorts, full and detailed schemes to ensure the practical and successful application of the provisions of the Act in this regard. This work, of course, will require the close and careful consideration of the board. Apart from the requirements of an enlarged catering industry, there is immediate need for additional competent hotel staffs in all parts of the country. The difficulties of hotelkeepers, and so on, will be rendered more acute in Gaeltacht areas if the board requires, as a condition of registration, that within a limited period hotels and guest-houses in the Gaeltacht shall employ none but Irish staffs. The Board has been assured of the co-operation of the Department of Education in connection with training schemes, but proper training in most departments will require a number of years. This work can be undertaken during the war period, and it is the intention of the Board to give the matter its most urgent attention in the hope that the necessary personnel may be available at an early date.
In relation to everything I have said, it may be desirable to stress that the Tourist Board is to give special consideration to Gaeltacht areas in connection with the development of the holiday industry. Its policy in that regard is to do everything that it is possible to do in order to develop the industry in those districts—to do everything that can be done, that is to say, without detriment to the survival and revival of the Irish language. If the Gaeltacht is the backbone of language survival, and if for that reason its people must be given every encouragement to remain there, the board feels that it can help substantially to this end by improving the economic position of the Gaeltacht population through honourable, gainful employment, and not through grants or doles. There has been, in recent years, a welcome increase in the demand for holiday accommodation in Gaeltacht areas for both adults and children. We cannot, however, remain blind to the fact that the conditions under which many such visitors are housed leave much to be desired. At the best, they impose an unnecessary strain on patriotism, and they may be full of more acute physical dangers.
The board's programme for developing the holiday industry in the Gaeltacht will proceed upon certain assumptions. First, those in the Gaeltacht who are employed in registered hotels and guest houses must have a competent knowledge of Irish. The best, easiest and quickest method of learning Irish is by staying with Irish-speaking families. Suitable accommodation must be provided for people who appreciate that fact, and the number of visitors to the Gaeltacht for that purpose can and must be increased by the use of judicious publicity. Accordingly, but naturally subject to such modification as a fuller examination of the problem on which the board is now engaged requires, it is proposed to proceed in this matter on the following lines: First, the concentration of a large number of visitors in any one area is to be avoided so as to ensure that the local Gaeltacht influence will predominate. Accordingly, a few houses in each of a number of parishes are to be selected in consultation with local committees. Each such house is to be provided with one or, if possible, two spare rooms, and in practically all cases these will have to be specially built. The houses are to be equipped with suitable sanitary arrangements, and to be furnished with good beds and bedding and simple furniture, and, where practicable, a turf-burning stove and sundry other minor equipment. The owners of the houses selected will have to arrange for all the construction work, but loans will be given to cover the cost of materials and equipment. Such advances will be made on presentation of the certificate of completion of the work, and will be repayable over a reasonably long period.
In the case of houses fitted and equipped as I have described, through the instrumentality of the board, it will be an essential condition that visitors can only be accepted through the Board or an approved agent thereof, to whom an initial payment by way of deposit shall be made. Such deposits will be retained by the board towards repayment of the principal and interest on the loan, the balance of the visitor's bill being paid to the owners of the house at the end of the holiday. In the case of visitors coming without notice, the secretary of the local committee will act as the booking agent for the board. The board, in co-operation with the Government Departments, and with the help of the county vocational committees and agricultural committees, will endeavour to see that the owners of houses operating under its aegis will be induced to cultivate a wider range of vegetables and fruits than is customary with them, and provision will also be made to enable female members of the households to receive the necessary training in cookery and domestic economy.
Finally, the board will utilise its resources in Dublin and elsewhere to secure for the owners of houses in the Gaeltacht, who possess the necessary accommodation, clients who are either Irish-speaking or who are genuine, would-be learners of the language, and care will be taken to ensure that none but those are booked through the agency of the board. It is hoped that the new standard which will be set by the improved houses envisaged by the board will attract visitors to them. If these hopes are fulfilled, the success will have the double effect of encouraging neighbouring houses to come into line, and it will make language enthusiasts feel that they can book accommodation with Irish-speaking families for themselves and their children with every assurance of comfort and convenience. The board has indicated to me that it may require repayable advances up to £20,000 to enable it to try out a number of experimental schemes upon the plan which I have outlined.
In normal conditions the development of the sport of angling would be one of the major features of the Tourist Board's programme. The intervention of the war naturally limits its opportunities in this regard, but certain considerations make it highly desirable that a programme of work adjusted to war conditions should be proceeded with. Angling, in fact, has distinct claims upon the attention of the board. The angling resources of this country, relative to those of other countries in Europe are, I understand, unique in their extent and in their capacity for further development. It is possible to increase enormously the number of people who patronise our rivers and lakes, particularly from amongst our own people, of whom the proportion interested in angling is amazingly small. Anglers as a class are a desirable type of tourist. Their requirements do not involve a big expenditure in the way of amusements and amenities at the various resorts.
Angling visitors from Great Britain have been a source of big revenue in the Gaeltacht areas, and the reduction and possible total loss of such traffic during the war will inflict severe hardship on those who profited from it during previous years. I understand that in a good year in Galway alone, apart from the main expenditure of the visitors in hotels and guest houses, up to 500 men, most of them uneconomic land owners, earned at least £30 per head each year by acting as boatmen for the anglers and bailiffs for the board of conservators. These occupations left them naturally plenty of time to look after their own holdings and in many cases represented their main source of money income. In peace time the development of our angling resources, which could by no means be described as over-ambitious, would enable us to increase substantially that already important income of £15,000 per annum to probably the most deserving section of the people of Galway, the majority of whom are native Irish speakers; and that applies likewise, I am sure, to other parts of the country. During this war we must at least try to minimise the losses which these districts suffer and that can be done by developing an increased interest in angling amongst our own people and planning for a greater patronage of our lakes and rivers when peace returns.
Bearing all this in mind, the Tourist Board proposes, in conjunction with, and through the publicity activities of, the Irish Tourist Association, to endeavour to promote increased interest in angling among our own people, most of whom wrongly regard the sport as a rich man's recreation, and in that connection to endeavour to direct new traffic to fishing districts in the Gaeltacht and secure any changes in and additions to the hotel and guest-house accommodation there that may be necessary. The board is also negotiating an option to purchase by lease a large series of lakes in Connemara with the object of their being developed, either under the direct operation of the board, or through a company to be formed for that purpose. Naturally, no commitments in this regard will be made by the board without the prior agreement of the Minister for Finance and myself. The board believes, and I share the belief, that success in the carrying out of a scheme of this nature would be of very great value from the purely commercial point of view on the one hand, and as an example of what can be done with similar stretches of water all over the country.
I have already mentioned the steps which the board propose to take to improve accommodation in Gaeltacht houses for language enthusiasts. This, to some extent, is linked up with the board's plan for improving angling attractions. They hold that it is possible to make many a language enthusiast a keen angler, to house him comfortably within the reach of good water, and, proceeding on the reasonable assumption that the man of the house can fish as well as talk Irish, it is likely that the language enthusiast will become not only an Irish speaker but an angler and visitor to the Gaeltacht for the rest of his active life. The possibilities of angling are illustrated from another aspect by an experience of so recent a date as last year. Nobody in this country bothers about coarse fish.
