The savings of €12.95m on current expenditure across Tourism Services in my Department's Vote in 2014 is in line with the Comprehensive Review of Expenditure programme. However, the bulk of the savings is accounted for by the absence of the additional funding of €7m in 2013 provided for the Gathering Ireland 2013. The remainder is made up of further pay and programme savings as well as operational efficiencies across the tourism agencies.
The distribution of these savings across the subheads will be decided in the coming weeks and confirmed in the Revised Estimates Volume later in the year. These allocations will then form the basis for the formulation of business plans by the tourism agencies for 2014.