Liam Burke
Question:12 Mr. L. Burke asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation his plans for the future of CERT; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22431/01]
Written Answers. - Tourism Promotion.
Austin Deasy
Question:37 Mr. Deasy asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation his views on whether Bord Fáilte is best equipped to attract tourists here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22358/01]
Thomas P. Broughan
Question:47 Mr. Broughan asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation the Government's plans for the future of Bord Fáilte; if he has received a report from Bord Fáilte and CERT on a possible merger of the two bodies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22322/01]
David Stanton
Question:175 Mr. Stanton asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation his plans for the future of CERT; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22664/01]
I propose to take Questions
Nos. 12, 37, 47 and 175 together.
On 5 September 2001, the board of Bord Fáilte and the council of CERT announced their intention to take up an invitation by the Government to examine the feasibility of bringing the two bodies together to create a new national agency for the development of tourism and hospitality in Ireland. The Government, on my initiative, had asked the two bodies to consider this proposal in the light of the establishment of Tourism Ireland Limited, the new all-island company established under the framework of the Good Friday Agreement to market Ireland internationally as a tourism destination from 2002, onwards and the changing needs of a maturing tourism industry.
Tourism Ireland Limited will, in future, be responsible for international marketing, including functions previously carried out by Bord Fáilte such as Brand Ireland advertising programmes, market planning and research and the entire overseas office network. However, in addition to its product and regional marketing role, Bord Fáilte will retain responsibility for helping the Irish tourism industry to develop. This includes responsibility for tourism product investment, statutory functions for the registration or grading of certain tourist accommodation and regional tourism development through the regional tourism authorities.
Bord Fáilte also dealt with tourism training until 1963 when the Bord established a dedicated agency, CERT, as a company limited by guarantee, to act as the State tourism education, recruitment and training agency. CERT has broadened its original role of training workers for the hotel sector, to include all tourism and hospitality employment. More recently, in its new statement of strategy, CERT has begun moving in the direction of helping to build industry capability, focusing on human resources management and improving cost competitiveness through encouraging the adoption of best practice in all areas of operation.
I believe that the next challenge is to ensure that delivery arrangements for those tourism functions remaining with Bord Fáilte and CERT, are the most effective in helping Irish industry to achieve the optimum position for itself in the international marketplace, and so derive maximum economic benefit from the work of Tourism Ireland Limited. Having reviewed the matter I consider that bringing together the product and human resource development functions into one agency might provide the best delivery model for achieving this objective.
The council of CERT and the board of Bord Fáilte have now considered the proposal to bring the two bodies together to create a new national agency for tourism development and the chairmen have formally reported back to me over the past few days. I am pleased to report that both bodies generally support the merit of the proposal while putting forward a number of detailed views and issues for my consideration. One of my main objectives will be to avoid disruption to delivery of services to the tourism industries by the two agencies throughout the transition process. It is now my intention to consider the matter further, including the views of the two boards, and report back to the Government at an early date to seek a formal decision on the way forward for implementing the proposal.