As the Deputy is aware, An Agreed Programme for Government contains a commitment to ensure the construction of a state-of-the-art national conference centre. My Department is undertaking an assessment of the case for the provision of such a centre and how it might be achieved, and I hope to be in a position to take the matter to Government for further direction shortly.
While undoubtedly a dedicated national conference centre would be a desirable addition to our international conference infrastructure, there are no statistics available as to the actual amount of business that may have been lost to Ireland due to the absence of such a facility. What we do know is that the number of overseas conference visitors to Ireland in 2000 – 113,000, the latest figure available – represents almost a 200% increase on 1993 figures.