Vol. 515 No. 1
201 Ms Coughlan asked the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation the funding available for caravan parks and ancillary services in the Border, midland and western regions under the national development plan; the funding which will be available; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5381/00]
As the Deputy will be aware, the National Development Plan 2000-2006, has now been published and includes an outline of the Government's proposals for the development of the tourism industry over that period. Under the plan, I have succeeded in obtaining in excess of £350 million specifically for tourism marketing, product development and training over the next seven years. The sector will also benefit, of course, from funding under a variety of other measures, including those relating to rural development, marine leisure, angling, cultural development and micro-enterprise.
The plan provides for two regional operational programmes, the border, midlands and western, BMW, regional OP and the southern and eastern, SAE, regional OP, which will incorporate the specific provisions being made for the development of tourism product in these regions. Over the seven year period of the national development plan, £40 million has been allocated for this purpose to the BMW region. During this period, the strategy for tourism product development will be based on the needs of areas, having regard to whether they are already well developed tourism areas, or are still developing or underdeveloped areas.
One of the main priorities for funding will be to support sustainable proposals to create quality tourist attractions of international appeal in developing and underdeveloped tourism regions; and to maximise return in terms of tourism revenue from existing attractions, especially those of smaller scale, by developing and packaging them into well defined regional "clusters" of visitor attractions, offering an interesting range and mix of product capable of attracting and retaining visitors in an area.
These operational programmes, which will be published in the first half of this year, will outline in more detail the type of product eligible for support but it has not been decided if the operational programmes will give specific allocations to specific product categories – caravan and camping. Accordingly, it is not possible, at this stage, to give details of the type of products that will be eligible to apply for funding under the operational programmes.
