Vol. 406 No. 7
16 Mr. Enright asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline all of the organisations who market Ireland abroad for tourism purposes; the total allocation provided by him for these promotions this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
43 Mr. J. Higgins asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline all of the organisations who market Ireland abroad for tourism purposes; the total allocation provided by him for these promotions this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
44 Mr. Hogan asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline all of the organisations who market Ireland abroad for tourism purposes; the total allocation provided by him for these promotions this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
49 Miss Flaherty asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline all of the organisations who market Ireland abroad for tourism purposes; the total allocation provided by him for these promotions this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
64 Mr. Nealon asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline all of the organisations who market Ireland abroad for tourism purposes; the total allocation provided by him for these promotions this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
71 Mr. D'Arcy asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline all of the organisations who market Ireland abroad for tourism purposes; the total allocation provided by him for these promotions this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 16, 43, 44, 49, 64, 71 together.
Bord Fáilte are the lead agency for the overseas marketing and promotion of Ireland as a tourist destination. The board's total grant-in-aid for 1991 is £21.5 million of which over £16 million will be spent on overseas marketing.
There are also, of course, a whole range of organisations and companies, in the public and private sectors, who promote their services in overseas marketing. These include international carriers into Ireland, tour operators, hotel chains, accommodation providers, specialist operators, etc. Their activities are financed from private sources or, in the case of the semi-State companies, from commercially generated resources.
I might mention that the Irish Government have agreed with the EC as part of the Operational Programme for Tourism to make a total of £10 million available for marketing assistance to the private sector through the European Regional Development Fund over the four-year period 1989-93.
Following the Minister's meeting with the organisations involved in the promotion of tourism, is he satisfied that the £21.5 million he has made available, of which £16 million will be spent in marketing, is sufficient for this year, taking into consideration the huge drop in the numbers coming here in the recent past? Has he any intention of increasing the amount of money to that organisation for further promotion?
I do not. The figures are as follows; 1987, £21.9 million; 1988, £25.4 million; 1989, £21.5 million; 1990, £21.5 million; 1991, £21.5 million, including an extra £1 million in the budget plus additional ERDF funding to be matched by the private sector, which brings this year's control of expenditure by Bord Fáilte to an all-time high. That is throughout a period when public expenditure was cut back by something like £3 billion so it is the best the country can do.
Today is the first time the Minister has given figures that tell the nation he has provided no extra money for tourism this year over and above last year. He said the figure for 1990 was £21.5 million and the figure for 1991 is £21.5 million.
And an input in the budget.
One million pounds in the budget which was reduced and taken out in the Estimate.
Questions, please.
The Minister now has accepted that he has provided no extra funds.
No, that is not true.
Is the Minister aware that Mexico, Canada, Turkey, Malta and Britain are spending billions of pounds promoting their countries in America for the American market? It is an indictment on him and the Government that extra funds will not be made available to allow Bord Fáilte to go out there and fight for their share of that market? They are not in a position to do so.
I appeal for brevity.
The Deputy is appallingly badly briefed.
Tell me.
The 1991 figure was £21.5 million, £1 million in the budget and an additional £1.5 million from ERDF money which I announced recently to them. That is directly as a result of getting the industry off the ground again.
That is not Government money.
They are in chaos.
Directly as a result of our initiative in trying to relaunch the industry after the Gulf tragedy, we are producing a total of £3 million extra, so if the Deputy looks at the sums he will see there is substantially more money available to Bord Fáilte this year than there was in any of the previous few years.
Is the Minister aware that the industry itself is supposedly providing £1.5 million of that money in conjunction with the Minister providing £1.5 million and that the contribution of the industry is that they have reduced their costs by 20 per cent? That is their contribution, not further promotions. It is the Minister who is not well briefed.
Deputy Farrelly seems to be imparting information rather than seeking it.
The Minister is misleading the House.
Again the Deputy is not studying the facts and figures. I made it clear at my recent meeting with tourist interests that I would approach the EC to see if we could get the matching requirement reduced from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. That would mean that if I put up £1.5 million from EC funds the industry has to match it with £0.5 million, which is £2 million extra on top of the budget. It is something good.
Has that been approved by the industry?
Will the Minister make a statement to the House following his visit to America on how our campaign is going in America? Is he satisfied with our tourism promotion campaign in America? Have our prospects improved following the ending of the Gulf war? How has he found it? He was in America for a week recently. Will he clear up some of the ambiguities?
I would be glad to answer that, but there is a question down about my visit to America which I can deal with later on.
We will deal with it when we come to it, then.
Has the Minister undertaken any special promotion abroad in regard to the almost settled rod licence dispute? We lost numbers of tourists as a result——
The Deputy is raising a very separate issue there.
I know, but——
If Deputy McCormack wants to put down a question on the rod licence issue——
It is tourist promotion and we have lost valuable tourism——
I am calling Question No. 18.
The Minister should give some hope to the west.
The Minister should go over as a tourist.
I will not let down the west. The Deputy should not worry about that.
18 Mr. Cosgrave asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline the steps he is taking to promote this country for tourism purposes following the Gulf war; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
21 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline the steps he is taking to promote this country for tourism purposes following the Gulf war; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
28 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he intends to make further money available to Bord Fáilte for the promotion of tourism this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
30 Mr. Sherlock asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline the latest information available to his Department regarding the prospects for tourism this year, in the light of the ending of the Gulf war; if he plans any new initiatives to assist the industry in the light of indications of a difficult year, especially in regard to the North American market; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
32 Mr. Farrelly asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will draw up an emergency plan to save the Irish tourism sector and the Irish economy from a disaster in 1991 arising from the Gulf war and cancellations; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
34 Dr. Lee asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline the steps he is taking to promote this country for tourism purposes following the Gulf war; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
36 Dr. G. FitzGerald asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he intends to make further money available to Bord Fáilte for the promotion of tourism this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
38 Mr. G. Reynolds asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline his proposals to provide extra funding for tourism promotion in North America this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
40 Mr. Browne (Carlow-Kilkenny) asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he intends to make further money available to Bord Fáilte for the promotion of tourism this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
50 Mr. O'Brien asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he will outline the steps he is taking to promote this country for tourism purposes following the Gulf war; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
66 Mr. Connaughton asked the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications if he intends to make further money available to Bord Fáilte for the promotion of tourism this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 18, 21, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 50 and 66 together.
Following on the conclusion of the Gulf war I met with key representatives of the Irish tourist industry in Dublin Castle on Monday, 11 March last to review prospects and consider strategy for the 1991 tourist season. The general consensus was that prospects for 1991 had improved considerably with the early end to the war in the Gulf. It was also accepted that there was an urgent need for an all-out, intensive effort by the industry to encourage more visitors, especially from the US.
The Government, in recognition of the particular difficulties this year, have already allocated a further £1 million to Bord Fáilte in the recent budget for additional marketing and promotion in 1991. A further £4 million, in the form of ERDF grants, is being made available now to the industry for marketing assistance in co-operation with Bord Fáilte.
Since hostilities have ceased in the Gulf will the Minister agree that an excellent opportunity exists for this country to increase business in the American market? Will he undertake in the House today to make extra money available, no matter to whom, to Bord Fáilte or even Aer Lingus, who enjoy a great reputation on the American market, so that they can carry on a crash campaign of advertising to promote this country for the tourist season?
That is precisely the purpose for which we have allocated and put together a package of an additional £4 million on top of the £21 million which is already in Bord Fáilte's budget. I would like to do far better but it is a substantial increase.
That £4 million has been there for a long time. It is the same £4 million for the last nine months.
Will the Minister agree that the industry out there is not satisfied with the amount of funds they have at their disposal for the further promotion of Ireland this year? Following his meeting with them he said he would roll up his sleeves and they would get down to business; no business at all has been done since then. The people in the industry require extra funds for marketing to cope with the $12 million Britain has made available to promote Britain in America and the £6 million that Mexico has made available for promotions. Extra funds are required by the industry to ensure that more American visitors come here this year.
The Deputy is not listening to me. I have already allocated additional funds specifically for the purpose of relaunching the industry after the Gulf war. I was told by Bord Fáilte as recently as a few days ago that the matching is looking very good and that our application to the EC to allow the industry to put up 25 per cent instead of 50 per cent to match it, is looking promising. We have relaunched the tourist industry and I reject the notion that nothing has happened since the meeting in Dublin Castle.
It is a crash campaign.
I am at a loss to know why the Minister chose not to take my Question No. 33 with Question No. 21. Will the Minister not agree that his recent caravan to America was not part of the steps he was taking to promote this country for tourism purposes? Why has the Minister avoided taking that question with this clump of questions? I would have thought, because of the publicity, that this visit he made was an effort to bring back the tourists.
I can explain that. An insult was not intended. I only got back from the US a few hours ago and it was not possible to deal with that question——
Are you not lucky? What would have happened if the question had been higher in the draw?
In view of the information the Minister has imparted to the House about additional funding being made available for tourism promotion this year, will he move a Supplementary Estimate in his Department for those moneys, or will he bring forward moneys from next year and not make additional moneys available for tourism promotion in effect?
That seems to be a separate question Deputy.
We are doing both in fact. I have made that clear publicly on a number of occasions. The £1 million in the budget is obviously Exchequer funding, the £2.5 million and the additional £1.5 million is marketing money made available under the ERDF to the Government to market tourism. A portion of that has been brought from 1992 into 1991.
Will the Minister agree, given the situation vis-á-vis the North American market, that there is an ideal opportunity, as Dublin is the Cultural Capital of Europe this year, to push to keep the flights in the air and that the most attractive way to get North American business to Ireland is to slash the rates? Given the projected losses on the routes, would the Minister not agree that the airline might as well fly full aircraft with the same income by reducing the fares substantially? That would be a good PR exercise for Irish tourism. Will the Minister agree that that could be one way forward?
That would be a very tempting course of action for Aer Lingus — to halve their fares and hope the numbers double. The judgment of the company is that this is not the way they wish to proceed. They wish to recover their costs and try to get the company back into some sort of profitability. The Deputy has touched a chord because one thing I learned during my recent few days in the US was that the UK and American airlines are launching a massive discount fare campaign this summer, to airlift people from the US directly to London. They are offering fares which are staggeringly low. This is a cause of great concern for our airlines and I am genuinely concerned about it.
Can the Minister——
Deputy Farrelly for a final question.
The Minister said he is only back from the States. The industry informed me no later than today——
A question please.
——that they had not enough finance for the promotion in North America to attract more tourists here. Also at that meeting which the Minister mentioned in one of his replies a tour operator informed the Minister that last year he had 500 groups for golfing holidays and that this year he had only 50 people.
The Deputy is imparting information rather than seeking it.
Taking those matters into consideration, there is a need for extra funds. Will the Minister bring in a supplementary budget for a crash campaign to ensure that jobs are sustained in the tourist industry here?
That is a separate question.
I received a large number of questions all identically worded from the Opposition Benches——
They are opportune.
——in regard to funding. All I can say is that there is more money this year than there was in the previous couple of years. I am satisfied that it is sufficient. Bord Fáilte, the IDA and CTT will all say that they would like more money and that if they got more money they could increase exports, improve tourism and so on. The reality is that we have provided more money at a time when public expenditure——
It is the second largest industry in the country.
——has been slashed. The tourist promotion budget has escaped largely unscathed at a time of substantial cutbacks in public spending.
I am glad the Minister has provided an answer for the inadequacy of a number of his replies today in that he has admitted that he is only back from the US. The Minister is clearly suffering from jet lag.
I am in as good a shape as the Deputy.
I thought Deputy Currie had a pertinent question to put.
It was a pertinent comment.
I would ask the Chair's indulgence in connection with a priority question vis-á-vis Aer Lingus Holidays and their collapse. The Chair informed me that the question was refused because it was sub judice. I am not aware of any case being taken in the courts.
I have nothing to add to my reply to the Deputy on the matter.
I would like to have it on the record of the House that I think that was a wrong decision.
My priority question to the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications was ruled out of order on the basis that Deputy Kemmy already had a question to the Minister and that the Labour Party were only entitled to one priority question. I then discovered that Deputy Kemmy's priority question had been disallowed. At that stage I felt that at least my question should have been permitted on the Order Paper. This is outrageous. We have one priority question——
If Deputy Toddy O'Sullivan had brought that matter to my office I would have looked into it and have facilitated him if possible. That disposes the questions for today.
