As the Minister said, we are only beginning to develop the potential of our tourist industry and it is limitless in its possibilities. I was most interested to hear the Minister refer to the development of the various walkways. He did not refer to County Cork specifically. I do not wish to be too parochial about his——
Tourist Traffic Bill, 1987: [ Certified Money Bill ]: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
Because I am a very fair man.
The Senator is very good at setting precedents.
Speaking with the utmost detachment, let me say that along that line of mountains, the Boggeraghs, the Derrynasaggarts down to Shehy, in that crescent in inner north-west Cork we have the finest walking country in Ireland and, indeed, in Europe, in that we have a dense network of roads which are almost unused and on which there is very little traffic and properly equipped with a half inch map, you can plan the most spectacular walks combining fresh air, scenery and a solitude, in every sense a whole recreation of the spirit. Mind you, I should not be saying this because I enjoy these walks so much that, selfishly, I do not want anybody else to enjoy them as well. Nevertheless, my patriotism prevails in this matter.
They can come to Clare, Senator Murphy.
I have the floor and I am entitled to praise Cork while I can. Clare happens to be at the moment No. 3 in my favourite counties but if you work hard you might get it elevated, a Chathaoirleach. For a certain kind of tourist we are at only the beginning of developing the whole idea of a walking tour. Visitors do not really mind the rain — although perhaps I am a little optimistic in saying that. Really it does not rain that often. A commited country walker can find out how many rainy days we have and how frequently one can get out. As has been said, they do not expect the sun. They expect the rain but they certainly do not expect the litter and the filth. We should provide for that walking and hill-walking dimension.
Profits, as the Minister pointed out, are absolutely vital to the expansion of the tourism industry. However, profits are not to take precedence over fair prices and we have, to a large extent, overpriced ourselves. I am sure many Senators will share my experience that any time one goes, for example, to London and has a modest meal one realises how little it costs in comparison with the same meal back at home. Attempts have been made to have special package prices and so on and that kind of thing should be developed further. Also, profits must not be made at the expense of exploitation. The day has gone when youngsters could be recruited as slave labour in the tourist industry, and I submit that any attempt to revive that is simply an invitation to social trouble.
I have a special interest in the whole tourist dimension because my basic faith is in this country and tourism is a native industry. It is a virtually undeveloped resource. That is why I welcome what is really only a modest Bill technically but one which has given us this welcome opportunity to talk in the presence of the Minister. I wish him very well.
Like the other speakers, I welcome the Minister and congratulate him in particular for the very swift action he has taken since he has come into office. Resolutions to many problems we have been talking about for a long time have been announced recently, and that is a welcome factor. However, between our tourist boards, ourselves and anybody connected with tourism, we are not doing enough to promote this growing industry which has no limitations on its growth. All our energies and efforts should focus on it in the future.
There is a need for a greater awareness and acceptance by everybody in the industry that we must generally make the visitors welcome, treat them well and give them good value for money so that they will return, spread the faith and tell people exactly what kind of country we have. Immediate attention is needed to improve and regulate some of our major attractions. I am referring not merely to what Senator McMahon spoke about, our local beaches which need to be controlled and maintained for our own people, but I am referring to tourists and the country we are trying to sell to them. We cannot go abroad and sell sunshine. However, we have things to sell which are far more important. We have the beauty of the country. We have our offshore island trips. Here, let me be parochial and mention trips to the Blaskets, the Skelligs and so forth and I will even expand and go to the Aran Islands. We should ensure that the operators are licensed and that the systems are regulated. At present we cannot promote the Skelligs, the Blaskets or any of these islands because we have no licensed operators.
However, we have both coast and inland fishing. Fishing is one of the biggest sports in the world now: it is the biggest single sport in the UK. The Minister and Senator Murphy talked about walking. In the UK at the moment about three million people participate in walks and so forth.
At a recent conference of the General Council of County Councils in Ballybunion, part of the morning session was devoted to tourism, the growth of tourism and so on. I was more than surprised when it was stated by one of the speakers that, in a recent survey in France, 85 per cent of the people surveyed did not know where Ireland is. We are not doing enough to promote our country. I mentioned to the Minister that about a year and a half ago I was in Spain at the Future conference where every country in the world was promoting its own country, selling its wares and so on. Ireland had a stand there but it was unmanned. I took a very poor view of that because it is one of the biggest tourist promotion conferences not alone in Europe but in the world.
There should be harmonisation of standards between the various Departments as regards caravan and camping sites. They should be legally registered through Bord Fáilte. At the same time local authorities are now in a position to issue licences to people who will not even meet with Bord Fáilte requirements. There should be initiatives to encourage more improvements in the hotel and restaurant sectors. Taxes may be too high. The tendency now seems to be for the proprietors to cut back on staffing levels. This obviously has a knock-on effect of reducing the level of services to the visitor.
There should be more initiatives to provide additional active type holidays and indoor facilities. Another recommendation which the Minister should consider is the area of grant-aid. Consideration will have to be given in the future of providing a fund to the industry which could be used for interest free loans. The easy grants system sometimes encourages people to get involved in uneconomic projects, whereas if they had some responsibility for the total costing of the project they would ensure that it is viable before they would enter into it.
I do not want to repeat what other speakers have said but I want to put emphasis on one matter mentioned by Senator O'Callaghan, that is, the licensing laws. It is a disgrace and a scandal to see our own tourists who go to seaside resorts for a week or two weeks holidays having to be out on the sidewalks at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night. As Senator McMahon mentioned, there is an urgent need for proper signposting and priority should be given to the prime tourist areas in this regard.
I welcome the Bill and congratulate the Minister on his swift action which is badly needed because the tourist industry — even though the growth figures were mentioned for the first quarter of this year they are not visible — needs the injections and the initiatives which he has put into it.
We in Fine Gael support this Bill in its entirety. I commend the Minister for the enthusiasm and the drive he has brought to the task of increasing our tourism earnings. In this, he is following a very good example set by Deputy John Bruton as Minister and by Michael Moynihan when he held that portfolio in the last Administration. I do not underestimate the size of the task facing the Minister. It is a very difficult one, even though tourism is seen by very many people as a fairly easy soft target. Most people feel they are experts on why we are not doing better and can tell us why we should be doing better, but what we usually find in these discussions, when we get down to specifics, is that it is not always that easy to bring about the changes which would improve the situation especially when these changes can involve taking on local vested interests, whether they be local angling groups, local shooting groups, restrictive trade union practices or people who are in pursuit of short term financial gain. The key sentences in the Minister's speech made in the Dáil was:
... we carried out a full appraisal of the targets which Bord Fáilte had set for the 1987 season. We were frankly shocked by the complacency and lack of ambition which they showed for the sector.
The Minister is right to be disappointed and I urge him to have, as a priority, a major reappraisal of the role, the functions and the whole raison d'être of Bord Fáilte. Bord Fáilte are an institution and like all institutions, including ourselves here in the Houses of the Oireachtas, they must renew themselves or else atrophy.
When Bord Fáilte were set up they were a small vibrant, exciting organisation charting out new developments and seeking out new markets. They were enthusiastic about their market and their purpose. Nobody today could describe Bord Fáilte in those terms. Bord Fáilte are now very firmly part of the Irish establishment. There is no sense of challenge or excitement about what they are doing. Bord Fáilte have become increasingly defensive about their own role and their own contribution. That is not the Bord Fáilte of yesteryear and the Minister is right to be concerned about their targets and their performance.
I would like to look at a few facts concerning the operations of Bord Fáilte. Last year Bord Fáilte spent over £23 million. In these days when we have become used to telephone numbers as the sort of figures used in terms of public spending, £23 million may not seem to be an awful lot of money. But if we think about £23 million for a moment and put it into the context of what other similar organisations spend, we can see that it is, indeed, a huge sum of money. It is a huge marketing budget. Its true size becomes apparent when we put it into perspective and the perspective in this case is the private sector.
Last year the total advertising budget of the combined advertising agencies in this country was £110 million. That includes the spending on promotions of such enormous companies as Guinness, Brown Thomas's, Clery's, Waterford Glass, NET, the building societies, Carroll's, Esso, Shell, Texaco, Superquinn and Dunnes Stores. The entire advertising spending of all these companies last year came to £110 million. Bord Fáilte's budget on spending last year — I may be slightly unfair here but nonetheless Bord Fáilte are largely a marketing organisation — was one-quarter of the combined spending of all of these organisations. RTE's total advertising revenue last year was £50 million. That includes all the money spent in this country on radio and television advertising. Bord Fáilte spent about half of that amount. Those comparisons put the amount of money Bord Fáilte are spending into some sort of proper perspective. That budget is proportionately higher than the amount of money spent by any national tourist organisation in any other country in the European Community and probably any other country in the world.
Bord Fáilte are not the only body spending money seeking to attract visitors to this country. The major air and sea carriers spend large amounts in promoting Ireland. Aer Lingus, for example, are huge spenders in this regard. Irish Continental Lines spend money to great effect in attracting people from the Continent and B & I have been aiming at the British market and and with some success, as have Sealink. In recent times we have seen the success of Ryanair in their advertising budgets trying to attract people into this country. CIE do not do a bad job in trying to attract people to their bus tours. There is also spending out of this country by the major hotel groups, by Jury's Hotel, the Doyle hotels groups and some of the other major hotel groups.
When we add all this to Bord Fáilte's budget we can see that the amount spent, both out of public and private funds, in trying to attract tourists to this country is a truly huge amount, much greater than that spent by any other European country. We have to ask ourselves a number of questions about this. How many of those who came here as tourists came as a result of Bord Fáilte promotions? I do not know the answer and I do not believe there is any real way of knowing. We have all filled in forms at airports and seaports asking us about our travelling, whether we were tourists, trying to ascertain the true extent of the size of the number of tourists coming into the country, and we have to conclude from our experience that this is a fairly imprecise science, especially trying to find out why people came and what prompted them to come to this country. Was it the promotion of Bord Fáilte? Was it the other advertising groups? Was it the ethnic pull? Was it simply a whim, or was it word of mouth?
Talking to people in the tourist industry, people whose judgment I respect, many would argue that the promotions of Bord Fáilte have, perhaps, not had the same cutting edge or the same success as the more specific promotions of those people who have a direct dollar or pound to make from their promotions. In many ways these may well have been effective in bringing people into this country. I do not know what is the real story. It is one of the unanswerable questions, but there are enough doubts surrounding the whole question of whether we, the taxpayer, are getting value for money spent by Bord Fáilte promoting tourism to treat with a certain amount of caution some of the more outlandish claims being made by people in the tourist industry who have a vested interest in telling us that all is going very well indeed.
I am not here to knock Bord Fáilte. There is always the danger if one says hard things about a State organisation that one is accused of knocking it. I am not doing that. Over the years Bord Fáilte have served this country very well in many ways. There are certain parts of our tourism promotion which are identified, and always will be, with Bord Fáilte. The Tidy Towns Competition, which is in some trouble at the moment, is one of the great innovations of Bord Fáilte. Many of their brochures and their promotions have been of a very high quality. Having said that, I come back to the question which I am asking as objectively as I can: are Bord Fáilte giving value for our money?
To some extent we are all in a classic no-win situation as far as Bord Fáilte are concerned. If we are being honest we can see there are many factors over which no State agency has control which will affect the state of tourism — the state of the dollar, the pound, the franc, the Deutsche Mark, the climate of international terror which prevailed last year and which kept many Americans away from Europe, and even the weather. If it is a good year Bord Fáilte will always be very quick, maybe justifiably, to claim credit for that fact, but if we have a bad year, then the cry goes up from Bord Fáilte that they are under-financed, that they need more money to get the message across. We may well have a situation where the taxpayer is pouring in more money without involving the Government in any root and branch appraisal of whether the money is being spent well or wisely or whether we are simply pouring good money after bad. Over the years this has been the classic response of Bord Fáilte. In a good year Bord Fáilte take much of the credit, in a bad year Bord Fáilte needs more money to be spent in the same way, irrespective of the results being achieved. It is time that "stop" was shouted in this regard. That certainly was the view of Deputy John Bruton as Minister and I believe it is also the view of the present Minister, Deputy Wilson.
Bord Fáilte have at least two major problems at the present time. The Minister referred to one of them in his speech today and I agree with him, that is, the problem of developing a saleable attractive image of what Ireland has to offer. The current image projected by our tourist board is too vague. We have not created an image of Ireland to which people can readily respond, which makes a fairly immediate impact and makes them see something specific which they will want to enjoy and which will bring them to this country.
Let us take by contrast the image of Spain. All of us have a very definite image of what Spain has to offer. We think of sunshine, beaches, bull-fights, late night dancing, and we may think of drink at prices a great deal less than obtains in this country. The picture of Spain is a clear one. Any one of us thinking of Spain would have more or less the same picture of why we want to go there and what we will get there. If we go to France we think again of the sun, but we think perhaps more in terms of the very high quality of food, the sense of culture, the chateaux and a civilised history. There may be other things about France but there is at least a very definite picture in our minds as to what France stands for. Even England, which is a latecomer into the tourism area, has succeeded in projecting a much more definite specific image of what it offers than we have. It has marketed itself better, capitalising on the monarchy, on a sense of nostalgia and tradition and it has been highly successful.
Our marketing image — and the Minister is very aware of this — is too vague. Looking recently through some French and German magazines, I noticed a very heavy concentration on the colleens with red hair, Aran sweaters, wolfhounds, Powerscourt, donkeys, and beautiful scenery — all very attractive and picturesque but not conveying to the wouldbe tourist any sense of what is available in Ireland. The wolfhound might be, the red-haired girl probably is not, but there is no real sense of what specifically is available here. It seems to be a soft centred type of advertising. There is an absence of any specific message or theme. What was Ireland offering? It did not come across very clearly and certianly the message was not as obvious as that conveyed by the other countries I have just mentioned.
I believe, and the Minister made this point very clearly, that our marketing should concentrate far more on specifics in trying to put our message across. It is here that Bord Fáilte should be much more active and should initiate developments. Bord Fáilte should be much more active in drawing public attention to the reasons why local vested interests in different parts of the country are inhibiting the development of angling and shooting, and this point should be put strongly and specifically. Bord Fáilte should take a strong lead in developing access to our national monuments, ensuring there is better presentation of these marvellous treasures. They should be strong in pointing out the reasons why Dublin and some of our major towns are not attractive to visitors.
I would have welcomed a strong Bord Fáilte view on the demise of the Dublin Metropolitan Streets Commission, which matter will be debated elsewhere today. In passing, I would ask the Minister, wearing his tourism hat in Cabinet, to look hard at the potential value of the idea contained in the concept of the Dublin Metropolitan Streets Commission, namely, its potential for developing the centre of Dublin in an attractive way. While it is gone for this year, I ask him to look hard at the idea and perhaps see if in some way that intention could be revived.
The point I am making is that Bord Fáilte should be in there making things happen. They should be initiators. They should be speaking out, not in the guarded language of the bureaucrat but in plain ordinary English or Irish, attacking those things which inhibit our tourist development potential. They have not been doing that, nor, I believe, have they been developing a specific image of Ireland which will make real impact outside this country.
The reason they are not doing that brings me to my last point. For historical reasons Bord Fáilte find themselves like so many other public organisations, an ageing organisation. This is a very common feature of current Irish society. It is true of my own area — the universities — where the age imbalance is very much in favour of the middle or older age, and there is a very small proportion of younger staff. It is true of the research institutes, it is true of many of the public sector areas in our society and it was true until very recently of RTE.
Debate adjourned.