The purpose of this Bill, as the Minister explained, is to dissolve Fógra Fáilte, which was the organisation responsible for the publicity end of the tourist development programme, and to transfer its functions to An Bord Fáilte, the organisation which is charged with other development activities including the supervision of hotels and the improvement of amenities of holiday resorts. The amalgamation of these two bodies is not in itself very important and, if the Government want to bring it about, I see no reason why we should divide the Dáil on the issue but I would like to put before the House some considerations to which the Minister did not refer.
On the whole, I think the amalgamation of these two bodies will prove disadvantageous. If there is any idea that their amalgamation will result in economies, I think it is entirely illusory. The only possible economy could arise from a reduction in the number of directors and even that is not intended so far as I understand the position.
The arrangement in the past was that the board of Fógra Fáilte consisted as to one half of nominees of An Bord Fáilte, men who were already directors of An Bord Fáilte, and, as to the other half, the representatives of the Irish Tourist Association who, I gather, are to be retained in this new scheme of organisation. Unless there is some intention to curtail the total expenditure upon tourist development activities, there can and will be no economy resulting from this change.
The Minister's statement has clarified the Government's intentions with regard to the position of the Irish Tourist Association in the new arrangement. The Irish Tourist Association was set up, as the House knows, as a voluntary body. For many years it was the only body in existence in this country interested in tourist development. It was financed almost entirely from allocations from county council funds. The scale of its activities was altogether too small in relation to our needs and they had to be supplemented by Government contributions distributed through a Government appointed organisation. When An Bord Fáilte was set up, however, I felt that there was advantage to be secured in retaining the Irish Tourist Association in existence and, if possible, by expanding its activities mainly in the direction of educating public opinion in this country in the economic and other benefits of tourist trade development.
The desire to keep the Tourist Association in existence was not based solely upon the revenue which it had from county council funds. That revenue was small in relation to the total expenditure contemplated upon tourist trade development, but the existence of the Tourist Association directors on the board of Fógra Fáilte, the keeping of the Irish Tourist Association as an integral part of our whole system, made it possible to maintain the interest of the county councils in the tourist development programme, which is essential for its success.
The Irish Tourist Association, however, was concerned only with tourist publicity. It had no other function in the past and it was not, in fact, organised to undertake any other function and, consequently, the arrangements made in 1952 for keeping the Irish Tourist Association in existence and utilising its contacts with the county councils and its interest in tourist development work involved bringing its nominees in on the publicity end of the work. Its directors were members of Fógra Fáilte only and Fógra Fáilte, as I pointed out, was concerned only with publicity activities.
The new arrangement following the amalgamation of the two boards appears to imply that nominees of the Irish Tourist Association, responsible to the Tourist Association, will sit in upon the joint board and will now have responsibility in relation to the supervision of hotels and other matters with which An Bord Fáilte was concerned. That may prove a source of difficulty. The extent to which it is desirable to have hotel proprietors directing the operations of An Bord Fáilte is a matter that we debated here in the past. It is clearly undesirable that An Bord Fáilte should be overloaded with representatives of hotel owners because its duties are very largely concerned with acting as policemen on hotel keepers and to seeing that they maintain proper standards of accommodation for visitors. If the representatives of the Tourist Association on An Bord Fáilte should be mainly concerned with the interests of hotel proprietors, then the whole work of An Bord Fáilte may get a wrong direction.
I do not know what arrangement the Minister has in contemplation. I assume from what he said that he will pick out from amongst the directors of the Tourist Association those whom he is prepared to nominate as directors of An Bord Fáilte and, while that process may involve some personal difficulties for him, I am sure he will appreciate the importance of maintaining the board as a balanced unit representative of the interests that should be represented in any tourist promotion organisation.
The report which we received on the development of the tourist trade in this country from the United States Mission—the Christenberry Report, as it is called—emphasised the special need there was to secure representation on the tourist trade promotion board of all the interests that have or should have a very direct interest in it.
Whether this amalgamation will produce greater efficiency is another matter which I gravely doubt. The Minister said that for some time past the two boards have been meeting jointly and that that proves they could do the business efficiently. I do not think it has been done efficiently. I do not think it has been done at all. Even before this amalgamation de facto of the two boards, my information was that the meetings of An Bord Fáilte were very long, that they sometimes failed to finish their agenda, and that time and again important business had to be left over to subsequent meetings. If, on top of the work they were then trying to do and not doing very well, they now have to be given all the responsibility involved in the expenditure of £250,000 per year on publicity work, it is, I think, doubtful if they will do that work efficiently at all.
I hear—I do not know if it is correct or not; perhaps the Minister will inform the House—that for some time past there has also been a practice of having an officer of the Department sitting in at meetings of the joint boards and that board decisions have to be cleared with the Minister before they become effective. If that arrangement is to be continued, no useful work will be done at all. Apart altogether from the objections in principle that can be advanced to the arrangement, it is an inefficient method of proceeding. The objections in principle are clear. If the Minister or the Government selects a body of men to discharge this responsibility, then they have to be allowed to do it. The only control which the Minister should exercise over them should arise from his power to remove them or his power to refuse to reappoint them when their period of appointment expires.
No statutory organisation of this kind can function if the Minister is going to keep his finger in the machine all the time and to insist upon having day-to-day decisions submitted to him for approval. Whatever occasioned that arrangement, if there was such an arrangement up to now, it should not be allowed to operate in the future. It should be brought speedily to an end. If the Minister has no confidence in the members of the board, if he does not trust them to administer their work properly, to do the things he thinks should be done, then it is up to him to get a new board; but having got a board that he has confidence in, he should let them carry on as they think fit. We have a number of these statutory boards now responsible for important economic and social activities and it would be a very undesirable precedent to establish that each of them must work day-to-day subject to ministerial veto.
I see that the name An Bord Fáilte is to be amended by inserting in brackets the words Irish Tourist Board. I think that is a very retrograde step. The practice has developed for some years past—I, perhaps, was very largely responsible for initiating it —of giving Irish titles to these organisations that we set up to do national work, Irish titles of a kind that are likely to be adopted and brought into common use, and to avoid attempting any English translations of these titles because if an English translation is given statutory authority it is the English translation that will be ordinarily used. The name An Bord Fáilte has now been accepted, it has come into use, its significance is known to all people who have any contact with the tourist business and it would be wrong at this stage to replace it—as it will be replaced if this section of the Bill remains unchanged—by the old title, Irish Tourist Board. There is no difficulty about securing recognition of the significance of the term An Bord Fáilte by foreigners. The word "fáilte" is one Irish word that has become known internationally and the term An Bord Fáilte conveys what it is intended to convey even to people who are not familiar with our State organisations here. The English term Irish Tourist Board is an unimaginative dead sort of title which will arouse no interest anywhere. In any case, I think that as we have got over the initial stage of getting an Irish title for this organisation we should not step back from that position now.
As this Bill is before us, there are a few observations I would like to make concerning tourist trade development generally. I think it is true to say-whether it was intended or not does not matter—that the attitude of the Government to the development of our tourist business is somewhat ambiguous. There are members of the Government who in the past have spoken critically of the whole idea of developing a tourist trade and many of them who expressed opposition to individual tourist promotion projects like An Tóstal. The main difficulty in securing the public co-operation which is essential to the development of this industry has been lack of understanding of its importance; and anything which tends to retard or prevent the growth of public understanding of the importance of this industry is to be deplored. I think the position has got to be made clear by an unequivocal statement by the Minister and perhaps by some of his colleagues whose attitude in relation to this matter in the past has been doubtful.
That applies particularly to An Tóstal. The statement which the Minister made here, in the previous session of the Dáil, in reply to a parliamentary question, was very colourless. It amounted to little more than an indication that he was not prepared to stop it. He certainly left in the minds of many of the people who were interested in the development of An Tóstal, whether as members of Tóstal councils or as people directly interested in tourist trades, that the Government was not very interested, that at best they were merely tolerating it. All the developments since have shown the deadly effect of that impression upon the plans which should now be almost completed for An Tóstal in this year. If the Government is not interested in that particular tourist development project, they should kill it and kill it quickly if they are interested, then they have got to give it the support it requires to make it work. It was the only major tourist development project which we have yet attempted in this country. Its aim was to increase the profitability of the tourist trade by extending the length of the tourist season. It was expected that by its development, by the publicity associated with it, the whole of the tourist trade of the country would benefit throughout the whole year.
I stated when An Tóstal project was first publicised by An Bord Fáilte that in my view it would take a number of years to establish it. I discussed the problems associated with its development with persons who were regarded as experts in tourist trade development in other countries, particularly in America. I was told in America by people with whom I discussed the matter and by American experts who came here, that during the first year the idea of An Tóstal barely penetrated through the top layer of Irish-American opinion. Its existence, the purpose of it, was known to those leaders of Irish-American organisations who are in constant touch with this country, who get newspapers from this country and whose activities require them to know what is going on here. In the second year, the knowledge of it and the desire to participate in it had penetrated one layer lower; but they all warned me that it would take five or six years before we got established in the minds of people in the United States, of Irish birth or Irish parentage, that this was the time of the year when they could organise their return visits to this country, that there were special facilities and attractions available for them at that time—much less sell the whole idea that once in a lifetime everybody of Irish parentage throughout the world should come for a holiday here.
The growth in the number of tourists from America last year was quite significant—in fact there was a 25 per cent. increase over the previous year— and all the indications are that that growth was attributable to the publicity in connection with An Tóstal and was likely to continue. Now, if there is to be an effort made to continue it, to avail of the prospect it offers of expanding considerably our tourist trade, then there has to be evidence of Government goodwill for it. It is not merely enough for the Minister to tolerate it, it is not merely enough for him to say to An Bord Fáilte that they are permitted to hold it, provided they do not spend too much on it. It is a project which can only be put over by a substantial effort.
When I was Minister for Industry and Commerce I took great pains to avoid making any personal reference to An Tóstal. I directed attention to what An Bord Fáilte was doing and repeated their statements on various occasions, but I carefully avoided anything which might convey a suggestion that it was an idea promoted by one Government for the purpose of any kudos it might bring. I was personally very pleased when the first and second Tóstal years had passed without anybody being able to suggest that the occasion had been used in any way whatever for Party political purposes.
Whatever danger there was of some section of the Opposition at that time opposing the idea merely because the Government in office was associated with it, that danger no longer exists. It is now a tourist development project which if taken up by the present Government will be enthusiastically and actively supported by the present Opposition. Consequently there is a clear road for those who want to use that idea for this important business of extending our tourist trade.
The Irish Trade Journal published certain statistics in a recent issue concerning our tourist trade and these statistics emphasised its importance. They estimated that expenditure by visitors of all kinds in 1953 in this country was just £30,000,000. Now we cannot afford to forgo an expenditure of £30,000,000 by visitors on goods sold through Irish shops or services rendered through Irish hotels. We can, in fact, expand that business very considerably. We have had the opinion of acknowledged experts who came here under the E.C.A. arrangement and who examined our position, that we can expand our present tourist revenue four times with very little effort and the enormous growth of the national wealth which would result from that expansion can easily be appreciated by Deputies. It is true that the great majority of visitors coming here come from Britain and for that reason a very high proportion of our tourist publicity expenditure must be directed at Britain. The figures show that the number of visitors who came from Britain, that is, visitors as distinct from one-day trippers from the Six Counties, visitors who came for an average stay of four and a half days increased in 1953 by about 5 per cent. over 1952, and the number of American visitors in that year increased by about 25 per cent.
This tourist business of ours is growing and we can help it to grow by the effort we put into it, by the resources we make available to the tourist promotional organisation and by the steps we take to maintain the efficiency of these organisations. A maximum allocation of £500,000 can be made under the authority of existing legislation for tourist promotion purposes. In fact in no year have we spent that amount. Our total expenditure of all kinds on tourist development is very much less than that undertaken by many individual cities or counties in other countries. In these other countries the economic significance of the tourist trade is more widely appreciated than here. There is a deep-rooted public realisation that if the tourist industry is to be maintained or expanded there must be investment in it in the form of improved amenities for visitors and increased publicity to direct attention to these amenities. The amount which we are spending may be large in relation to our resources, but it is very small in relation to the expenditures which competing countries are undertaking. We can direct that expenditure—in fact we must direct that expenditure—so as to get the best results from it. Not more than half that expenditure is available for publicity work; the other half goes to the development of our tourist amenities and I may say that I am very much disappointed by the work done by An Bord Fáilte in that regard. There were plans for the proper signposting of roads, particularly signposting in the counties of major tourist interest, and these plans appear to have been made, but they certainly are being executed extraordinarily slowly and it is still possible for a person like myself who knows the country pretty well to go astray between two of the principal towns. I travelled to Waterford only last week and I went astray because I came into one town which was not signposted at all. The difficulty of the tourist is generally to find his way out of towns; there is not much difficulty in keeping to a main road because if you stick to it you will generally arrive somewhere, but you can easily take a wrong turning in a town unless you are very familiar with it. I had hoped that by this we would have proper signposting of roads all over the country.
The second major work which, apart from hotel supervision, we hoped An Bord Fáilte would do is to open up access to places of tourist interest, of particular scenic attraction, or historic ruins and places that would be of interest to visitors. In that regard very little work appears to have been done. Perhaps the Minister will give us some indication of what has been done, but there is very little evidence of any substantial, any real activity by the board in that connection.
I cannot speak from personal experience of the work they are doing in relation to the improvement of the standards of hotel accommodation but the absence of any complaint from the hotel keepers would suggest they are not doing very much. If they were indeed pressing strongly for the improvement of standards of hotel accommodation I am sure we would have had an occasional reaction from the hotel trade. In that direction I do not think we are getting value for the money we are spending. There is a substantial staff there administered by An Bord Fáilte and they could be giving a better output. Whether their failure to do so is the fault of the board or not I cannot say. I suspect that that board for one reason or another has not been able to give them the right leadership. These protracted meetings of which I have heard reports and the inability of the board to deal with its programme is having an effect on the staff in limiting efficiency.
In the matter of publicity a good job was done in some directions but there are many indications that that job could be improved also. Undoubtedly the combined efforts of Fógra Fáilte, Aer Lingus and the external transport organisations which are concerned with the carrying trade to this country give an impression of activity in most of the major centres. Again whether that activity is being directed towards the class of people whom we can succeed in attracting to this country and on whom our tourist trade must be based is questionable. We have scattered throughout the world millions of people of Irish birth or parentage, in England, America, Australia and New Zealand, and in all these countries it is possible to sell the idea of coming home once in a lifetime to Ireland. I believe the greater part of our tourist publicity should be directed towards that end. If we could succeed in getting it established as the practice of these people of Irish origin to come home to Ireland once in a lifetime we would get an inflow of tourists that our present accommodation would be completely incapable of handling. We have in the existence of these millions of people with sentimental attachments to this country a basis of goodwill on which to build that other countries could not create with all their expenditure on tourist trade publicity, and while I feel that the work that has been done in this direction in the past was not, perhaps, as effective as it should have been, I am very doubtful about its effectiveness in the future when the responsibility for policy and the execution of policy in regard to publicity is going to be dumped in with all the other activities which An Bord Fáilte has been trying to discharge in the past, to be done now by one board.
There are a number of matters which I think might also be referred to in this connection, and on which I can perhaps speak with a little more freedom now than I could speak previously. We have every reason to be dissatisfied with the services which are made available by British Railways in relation to Ireland's tourist trade. It is only a few weeks since we had further newspaper reports of people returning to England from holidays in Ireland being unable to get accommodation on the ships at Dún Laoghaire and having to wait there all night. Local hotel proprietors had to open their lounges to prevent these people being left in the waiting room in Dún Laoghaire all night. Travel agents in England will uniformly report that they are unable to get any co-operation from the management of British Railways in planning holiday travel to Ireland. Uncertainty about the availability of sailing tickets and about the plans of British Railways in regard to the provision of facilities has created a situation in which the average tourist agent in England is no longer interested in booking people for holidays in Ireland because of the difficulties associated with it.
The standard of the facilities provided by British Railways for travel to this country falls very far short of the standard of facilities provided by the same organisation for travel to the continent of Europe, and, as British Railways is now a nationalised institution, controlled by directors who are appointed by the British Government, I think the time has come when the matter has to be taken up at Government level. The Tourist Board has made many representations to the management of British Railways. When I was Minister, I sat in personally on a number of conferences at which the representatives of the British Railways were present and at which the unsatisfactory nature of these services was discussed. We spent a great deal of money in improving the facilities at Dún Laoghaire so as to avoid the worst of the hardships which were experienced by travellers when British Railways failed to provide adequate shipping accommodation to take the number of people seeking it. There were many promises from the management of British Railways to improve the facilities, most of which were broken, and, generally speaking, their whole attitude towards the Irish tourist trade has been far less on-coming than it has been towards the tourist trade from Britain to other countries. In fact, if a comparison is made between the cost of travel, and particularly the cost of conveying a motorcar, between Britain and this country and between Britain and other countries on the continent, the extent of our disadvantage will be obvious.
The position at the moment is that British Railways have a virtual monopoly of surface travel between Britain and Ireland, and, if that monopoly is going to continue, we have to insist upon improved services and to make it clear to the British Government, which is ultimately responsible in this matter, that we are exceedingly dissatisfied with the existing services. If we cannot get any better co-operation from the management of that organisation, any substantial improvement in its services, the Government can be sure that they will get full backing from the Opposition Party in this House in any plans they may make to break in on that monopoly and to provide services under our own control.
Recently, I had occasion to travel from London airport and I must say that the waiting accommodation at London airport for passengers travelling to this country was very unsuitable and inadequate. The building looked to me more like a converted barn than part of a newly-built air terminus. The whole place was most unattractive, and unfortunately on the occasion on which I was travelling the plane to Dublin was considerably delayed and I had to spend hours there. I hated the sight of the place before I left it. I do not know that we are on good ground in expressing dissatisfaction on account of the unsuitability of the facilities at London airport, because the same lounge accommodation is offered to passengers on British internal services, and if the British public are prepared to put up with that treatment, I suppose we cannot very well complain, but I am quite certain that if An Bord Fáilte took the matter up with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, which administers that airport, some improvement in the comfort of the accommodation available for passengers to this country at that airport could be secured.
There are a number of other matters in which I am personally very interested and to which I should like to see An Bord Fáilte giving their attention. I refer to them merely to indicate the general impression I have got, both as Minister and as an ordinary Deputy, that An Bord Fáilte is not putting into this work of tourist trade development the effort that was expected from them. Whether that is due to the existing temporary arrangements affecting the activities of that board or not, I do not know, but I think the Minister will have to keep up pressure on them to get on with the job they were appointed to do and not to interfere with them in the doing of that job, if, by interfering, he is going to slow down the getting of results.
So far as the Bill is concerned, it can pass without any opposition from this Party. We do not mind very much whether An Bord Fáilte and Fógra Fáilte are amalgamated. If I were doing the job and setting up an efficient tourist organisation again, I would still have two separate boards because there are two clearly distinct sections of activity, each of which requires the detailed attention of people who are experts in that particular field; but if the Minister wants to amalgamate them, I will not oppose it. I understand that the proposals to have two boards in the 1952 legislation was opposed by the Parties then in opposition and they have to do something about it. I repeat, however, that any idea that an economy is going to result is an illusion and I doubt very much if increased efficiency will result either.
