I am very grateful for the opportunity of raising this issue on the Adjournment. The reason I raise this issue is the uncertainty which prevails in relation to the future of the Great Southern Hotels Group. The Great Southern Hotels Group is one of the great anchor points of the Irish tourism and hotel industries. I need not delay the House in talking about its important contribution over several decades and into the modern period. When one looks at those who are in senior positions in other parts of the hotel industry one finds that the training they received, be it at any grade from management to the porter who welcomes the tourist at the door, is due to a commitment to training which is the great contribution of the Great Southern Hotels Group.
I raise this matter because I believe it is nothing less than an ideological opposition which stands in the way of acceptance of a development plan for the group. I wish to put a number of questions to the Minister on this matter. If one is changing the existing arrangement and hiving off the Great Southern Hotels Group from Aer Rianta, one must ask what proportion of training is being carried by the private hotel sector in comparison to that being provided, for example, by the Great Southern Hotels Group. I suspect it is but a tiny percentage. Equally, one must take cognisance of the fact that to sell the group so as to maximise the capital yield for Aer Rianta is dismissive of the role the group plays in relation to the hotel industry and tourism sector. It is simply saying that the group, which was making a loss many years ago and which has been turned around and is now in profit, must be offered for sale so as to maximise the income of Aer Rianta.
The employees in the Great Southern Hotels Group were comprehensively insulted by a statement by a senior person in Aer Rianta not so long ago who suggested the State should not be involved in the business of making beds and serving food. The Great Southern Hotels Group is the major source of training. It is a flagship in the industry and there are models available that could have enabled the group to continue to make the contribution it has made and is making. For example, its existing revenues and accounts show that it has the capacity to borrow in its own right to provide for its future investment and expand the hotels and employment in them. Yet this is not being seriously considered as an option. At the moment it seems that in an atmosphere of uncertainty the only remaining issue is whether the group will be sold as a block or in bits and pieces.
It is also important that the Minister bears in mind that previous sales of component hotels within the Great Southern Hotels Group have been little less than scandalous. The price at which the hotels were sold has turned out to be a fraction of their value. When we look back we see that these hotels and their sites would have been invaluable assets for the hotel industry.
One must ask why the group is being offered for sale. Why is the group being broken up? Who will provide training if the group is sold off? Who will provide the quality of service which the Great Southern Hotels Group has provided? Why is a straight "No" being given to the option that the group could, from its own resources, fund its investment needs into the future and expand and create quality employment?
Another issue arises in relation to a matter which has been discussed among the staff in the different hotels and at the annual conference of the staff union, SIPTU. The SIPTU conference recently passed a motion asking for the hotels to be retained within public ownership.
Accepting that it wants to shed the group, why can Aer Rianta not be compensated from, perhaps, the National Treasury Management Agency, thus enabling the group to get on with the business of planning its future?