Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 12 Jun 1991

Vol. 129 No. 9

Tourism Initiatives: Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Seanad Éireann, recognising the important contribution of tourism to the economy, requests the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications to encourage all initiatives directed towards increasing Ireland's share of the world market, especially in view of the downturn in tourism consequent on the Gulf War and its aftermath.

—(Senator Mooney.)

Mr. O'Toole

In dealing with the whole question of tourism, I am not speaking directly to the motion in terms of whether this is an anti-Government or a proGovernment motion. There is a general consensus that tourism is an area in which we all move along together, positively. I want to make a number of points about a number of areas which I feel we need to concentrate on.

I will now accept, though somewhat reluctantly, and I am late coming to the conclusion, that Board Fáilte have worked out our weather forecasts and what our climate is likely to be. This is not a sundrenched island to be sold abroad as such. That is a reality that is slowly dawning on the rest of the world as well. Far from being a liability it is a very positive advantage that we can emphasise.

Before I get into that, I want to relate an experience I had in the last week. I was at a function in Killarney, one of the centres of the tourist industry in Kerry. I was talking to a woman whose son works in London and who had hoped to come home the previous weekend. He hoped to fly from London to Farranfore airport. He did not come home. The reason was simple. He went to Berlin instead because he could get from London to Berlin cheaper than he could get from London to Farranfore. Access is a critical part of the whole operation. There was a difference of £100 for a weekend, the difference between £150 and £250. There is a general view that we can get long term agreement on costs on Apex fares. The reality is that a significant part of tourism spending is impulse spending. People in Dublin, the major population centre in Ireland, going away for a weekend tend to go along the east coast because it is closer. If they go to the west coast they go to Galway. The number of people who go to Dingle from Dublin are committed people, people who are going home. People will not get into their cars and take a five-hour drive through the potholed roads of Ireland.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. O'Toole

It does not take from the need to have a fairly sound infrastructure. The need to have a regular ferry service into Cork is as important to the tourist industry in the west as anything else. I was fully supportive of the Minister and his parliamentary and other political colleagues in the Cork and Kerry areas in trying to develop that service. We need to look at investment in access in order to ensure that we get people to come here.

When we get people here what have we to offer them? There is a growing problem developing at the moment, that any kind of development spoils the scenery. Over the last number of years I have been involved, peripherally, in a number of arguments about producing tourist resources and tourist back-up facilities. I will give three examples along the west coast in terms of selling our cultural heritage, our natural heritage and the whole area of flora and fauna. First, there was the proposal to carry out mining on Croagh Patrick. That would have been a disaster. It would have been a big loser in the long term. It does not matter how we add on the tourist value, whether it is by developing the religious pilgrimage people, people coming to look at the scenery or people coming to enjoy nature. Once the people come here they are part of the industry. Similarly, there was the row in Clifden about an airport there. I certainly took the view that it would be totally unsuitable to build an airport where it was proposed to build it. It would have been damaging to the environment.

I find myself on the other side in the latest row in regard to the Burren area around Corofin and the proposal to build an interpretative centre there. I would like to put firmly on the record that I am in support of what the local people are saying. The proposal to build the centre and car park in an old quarry and in a bulldozed field is prefectly all right and people locally will benefit from it. No damage will be done to the heritage, the flora and fauna, to the unique environment. In fact, it will be made more accessible and more available to a greater number of people and it will also be presented to people in a way they can understand.

This is the kind of development we have to look at. If we are to develop our tourist industry there are two ways we can do it. We can look at the wool pullover and tweed brigade who do not want anybody to come in; we can look at the self-satisfied people who are on large salaries who do not want masses of tourists coming into the country. These are the people who will object to it. Then we have the crowd who will object every time someone puts a spade in the ground. Once we know we are going to take on people who are regressive in their views, we must at the same time be absolutely certain that we will protect our environment because our tourist industry is about selling our environment. We will only sell an environment that we protect.

I want to get on to aspects where we do not protect our environment. What do people come here for? What is magnificent about Ireland is its food and what is most suspect about Ireland at the moment is its food. There we have an inherent contradiction immediately. We have people who would come here to taste our food. There is a huge potential there for the production and the development of additive free food, of hormone free meat and of clean and unadulterated fish. We have everything going for us. If we let silage spill into our waters, if we use our seas as dumping grounds, if we do not control the hormone additives, or the angel dust then we lose that huge market.

Similarly, in regard to our culture, it is purely cant to say we will sell it. We need to present our culture, our cultural heritage, our cultural background and what has made us into what we are to our visitors. Irish people are different, without being racist about it. The Irish countryside is different. Ireland is different. As far as the tourists are concerned vive la différence. That is a difference we can sell.

We are a popular people in European terms. We are a popular people in world terms. We are a country in which people are happy to be. Therefore, we need to show them what we have. The discovery in the United States of the culprits who were attempting to steal some of the great antiquities from the west of Ireland was a resounding success. The people who discovered the culprits should be complimented. That is part of what we are, that is part of what people come to see. The American tourist comes from a country that has existed since roughly the 1500s, a country that is only 500 or so years old. We are showing these people buildings which are over 1,000 years old, or even older still if you go to places like the Gallarus Oratory in west Kerry, which is perhaps 1,500 years old. This is something which is beyond the concept of people from many of the new countries like Australia, the United States, etc., in terms of their particular heritage.

When people come into this country what do we have to offer them? I have mentioned food and culture. Let us look at the environment. One of the great developments over the last number of years has been the development of walks, the development of outdoor activity centres which is a growth area in many parts of the west particularly, I believe that is the future. We have now accepted that the weather is wrong. We will not attract people to come here to lie in the sun. Half of Europe are now worried about melanoma, skin cancer of various types, which is caused and exacerbated by the sun. People particularly from the north European countries, no longer want to lie in the sun. They want to come to some place where they are safe from the sun. We have that to offer. We need to have as our slogan clean seas, sweet water and clear air. That is what it boils down to at the end of the day. That is what will bring people here.

People, particularly people with children, cannot expect to spend an outdoor holiday all the time. We have to look at the development of leisure centres. I would put it to the Minister that an investment in that area is an investment that will reap benefit one hundredfold. We should make it our objective to attract tourists through our clean seas, sweet water, clear air, good food, no additives, clean meat and well-stocked lakes and rivers.

In some cases we have gone backwards. One of the areas in which there has been a major regression in tourist terms has been sea angling. I can recall 20 years ago when sea angling was a major area of tourism in the west. That is not the case any more. It has died with the fishing industry when one would imagine the reverse would have been the case. As farmers have gone into the area of farmhouse holidays one would have imagined that in the fisheries area sea angling would have developed. On any visit abroad one will always find waterway possibilities. I will not indulge the Senator from Leitrim who has recently joined us but we now have that possibility. I spent last weekend boating at St. Mullens on the Barrow. It struck me that it will be possible to go from there to Ballyshannon in the next 18 months or so, through the Barrow navigation, the Royal Canal, the Shannon Navigation, the Ballyconnell canal and the Erne Navigation. No place in Europe can provide a similar facility. Even France, with its intricate system, cannot provide that possibility. We are under-selling that area.

The inland waterways is huge. The reality is that one can travel all the way from Tullamore to Lowtown, or Tullamore to Robertstown — which in driving or cycling terms may not be a huge distance, but in boating terms is a long distance — and perhaps not meet another boat. Those waters are uncluttered, they are uncrowded, they are mainly clean and are becoming cleaner. That is an area we have not developed.

In Dublin, with a major river running through, one cannot go on a boat trip. That is a classic example. We have not developed those areas at all. There are tourists walking up and down the quays during daylight hours and there is no possibility of having a boat trip. For instance, in Paris you have got the bateaux rouge to take people on trips up and down the Seine. We have failed to develop this tourist area just as we have failed to develop the sea angling area.

Dingle is an example of a place where they have developed boat trips for tourists, through a process of serendipity, because they found a way to bring people out to see "Fungi". If "Fungi" were to leave Dingle tomorrow morning it would create problems as the reality is that hourbour trips have now become part of the tourist scene there. I do not see why harbour trips should not be part of the tourist scene in every town in the west which has a large harbour. Every harbour has a sufficient history to warrant this development.

We need to maximise our resources, to give a resource audit of our tourist potential. That, basically, is looking at our weather, our seas, our water, our air, our food, our vegetables and our fields so that people can come here and eat the best food, enjoy themselves in a safe location and get back-up and a support from people at all levels. There should be a welcome for children and there should be access possibilities which will be relatively cheap to people from continental Europe and other places, whether they come by boat or by air. We need to develop those areas. We need to develop the access routes and we need to keep competition on the access routes to ensure that we can bring in our tourists and give them a welcome.

Mr. McKenna

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. I agree with the last part of what Senator O'Toole said. It is now recognised that tourism is one of the major leading industries in the world economy. Annual statistics which I read recently show that the annual turnover of worldwide tourism, travel and leisure is now in the order of £2 million billion. It would be even difficult to write that down in figures. It is an enormous amount. The return on tourism is more than the gross national product of the Federal Republic of Germany and the UK combined. We are talking here about an industry that is absolutely enormous.

The tourism, travel and leisure industry is estimated to employ more than 100 million people right throughout the world. Jobs are created at a higher rate in this industry than in any other sector. Over the last ten years, in virtually every OECD country, the number of people employed in tourism-related industries has risen more rapidly than in all other service industries and far faster in actual fact than the employed labour force as a whole.

The scale of the industry can be gauged from the fact that in most of the industrialised countries it employs more people than agriculture, the motor industry, electronics, iron and steel and textiles put together. A spectacular statistic is that in the US since 1976 15 per cent of all employment growth at 3.2 million jobs has been in the tourist-related sector. In Europe, 10 per cent of total employment was in the tourism, travel and leisure sector.

As we all know, the industry is now being restructured. Senator O'Toole referred to this. The whole emphasis is away from sun holidays because of the fear of melanoma, or skin cancer, which we were taking about. The emphasis is now on health and health-related holidays and because of that the whole emphasis in relation to the attraction of tourism and tourist-related activities is being restructured. This has enormous implications for this country — Senator O'Toole has referred to it — in terms of the benefit which can accrue from the change in emphasis on holidays and tourism and also in terms of the need to be prepared to harness all the benefits that can accrue from the change in attitudes of people throughout the world. There is this big trend away from the sun holidays where one is lying in the sun, because of all of the difficulties and rightly so. It has been proven that too much exposure to the sun causes a lot of problems both in terms of skin cancer and other ailments.

We all hope that the summer will not be too bad and that we will get our fair share of the sun but even if the sun does not shine every single day we have many attractions and advantages that they do not have in other countries. Senator O'Toole emphasised one in relation to our food. It is not just one factor. We have other advantages also that we should exploit. We have a beautiful rugged country, we have a culture and heritage. Those are all very important factors that we must develop. Tremendous strides have been made but it is only the tip of the iceberg as far as tapping the potential of our resources are concerned.

May I be parochial for a moment and refer to the Shannon, and Lough Derg which is the lower of the three lakes on the River Shannon. I come myself only four miles from that lake and we regard it as one of the finest lakes in Europe. We are delighted with the brief of Shannon Development, the tourism promoters for the mid-west region and I want to acknowledge the outstanding work they are doing in the region in relation to tourism. They have been given the responsibility for the development of the agri-tourism sector as well. That, allied to the actual tourism sector, will be of tremendous benefit to the whole region. The enthusiasm and commitment with which Shannon Development have taken on this project allied to the other tourism promotional activities they are invovled in, are outstanding. From the chairman, Jack Daly, and their chief executive, Tom Dunne, right down the line through all the staff in Shannon Development they deserve great praise. The amazing degree of adaptation and flexibility and the will to achieve is an example of what can be done by a public body when they set their mind to it. They are certainly giving value for money and I would like to congratulate them on the tremendous strides they are making.

We in the county council have set up an elected representatives group comprising members of North Tipperary, Clare and Galway in relation to the development of the whole Lough Derg lake. It is under the chairmanship of Councillor John Sheehy and we meet regularly with a working group of State bodies who are interested in that region which is co-ordinated by Shannon Development. There is a very close relationship between all of those bodies and the working groups. The tremendous success those groups have shown with the working group of elected representatives in a very short time has been absolutely outstanding. In view of the success in this case, perhaps at some stage it could be considered whether the brief of Shannon Development be extended to encompass a larger region for the development of the Shannon region. The potential there is absolutely enormous. We had the privilege of meeting members of the Shannon forum in Athlone on a few occasions. It is through communication like that and the exchange of ideas that we can benefit one another rather than vying with one another.

I want to refer to the position of this area in relation to Shannon Airport, and the continuing controversy in relation to the status of Shannon. Any intelligent person who sees the enormous funds being invested in the promotion of tourism and other areas in the Shannon region, allied to the Government policy of decentralisation, would have to conclude that it would be false economy on the one hand to seek to develop a region like that while at the same time, downgrading the international airport that is so vital to the whole mid-western and southern economy. We have to recognise the realities.

The city of Dublin is bursting at the seams. It cannot cope with the existing traffic, let alone any increase in traffic. Every day there is controversy about the traffic situation in the city of Dublin.

There are many notable personalities who would see the downgrading of Shannon as an enormous mistake. Conor McCarthy, who is chairman of the Ryan Hotels group, recently gave statistics which support the status of Shannon and he said that expenditure per tourist via Shannon is 36 per cent higher than expenditure per tourist via Dublin. Another very important statistic is that of the tourists coming into Shannon, 72 per cent visit Dublin but of those who come into Dublin by alternative routes only 40 per cent visit the west and the south-west areas. There is a strong body of opinion which would conclude that Dublin hotels would be the losers if the status at Shannon was changed.

It is interesting to note in all of this that it is the shop lobby that has advocated a change in status of Shannon. It is not the hotels lobby or any other lobby. It is also interesting that Mr. McCarthy, who has two hotels in Dublin, has advocated the status of Shannon should remain and that the whole of the country would lose by a change in that status.

Other prominent people, including the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy O'Kennedy, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Collins, the Minister for Defence, Deputy Daly, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Reynolds, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, The Tánaiste, Deputy Wilson, the Labour Leader, Deputy Dick Spring and Mr. Derek Keogh, Chief Executive of Aer Rianta have all advocated that the Shannon status should not be changed. They are people who have no vested interest in the Shannon development except that they see the reality. The Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications is on record that he sees no reason why the status should be changed at present. The public should not be fooled into thinking that all of this is about passenger traffic. Local manufacturing industry would be considerable. A survey carried out by the Shannon status campaign shows that 47 companies and seven western counties have indicated its importance.

One should also remember that the airlines are not concerned with economic development. Their duty is to serve their shareholders. Why should they be calling all of the shots? They must have a vested interest in changing the status of Shannon. The whole emphasis should be on giving a service, not getting involved in development. Shannon Airport is a strategic national asset which for more than 45 years has played a vital role in maintaining balanced economic and social development and it has proved to be a generator of jobs and job opportunities. While the current threat to Shannon Airport's gateway status and the level of service with North America jeopardise 2,300 airport and tourism related jobs, the real devastation is already taking place. Investment in industry and tourism in areas where the investment accounts for more in job contributions, to personal income, is being deferred because of the uncertainty about the future level of services and will certainly have a serious impact on the appeal of west of Ireland location options for industry and tourism.

Shannon pioneered the concepts and strategies geared to drawing tourists to the airport, techniques later copied by Amsterdam and in most recent times imitated by emergent Third World nations. Shannon was also keen on launching and testing the feasibility of overseas industrial investment in the country by being picked as a site for a duty free zone where overseas export firms were located so that they would not destabilise native industry in the late fifties and in the early sixties. Tourism and leisure facilities, the fastest growing industry in the world, are strongly influenced by the green factor. The West of Ireland with its pure environment, fresh water, air and food, is a unique attraction in Europe. The EC recognises tourism as a key enterprise in its efforts to cushion and shelter rural and agricultural communities from the worst effects of the dismantling of agricultural supports. Regional policy, and its supports, is being geared to aiding peripheral areas of the EC, including Ireland, to beef up resources and infrastructure to help counterbalance the difficulties.

Over the past year the message being driven home by the Dublin lobby has been that Shannon is all right, it can stand on its own feet with the support of the Atlantic gateway because of its Aeroflot and Aerospace. Aerospace is a breakthrough project which will provide 1,000 jobs but there will be no revenue earning flights to the Shannon region other than landing charges for aircraft coming in for maintenance. The Dublin lobby claim that direct flights to Dublin will add 70,000 to 100,000 US tourists to the Irish market. This is a fallacy. No one can sustain that claim.

The Shannon pre-clearance emigration facility — the only one in Europe — means that a ten to 15 minute procedure there saves up to two hours in a queue at the US destination. That does away with the idea that there is an hour's delay in relation to overflights to Europe. In fact that facility provided at Shannon saves the traveller, in some cases, two to three hours. The switching of Shannon's transatlantic services to Dublin would require investment of £60 million to £100 million in airport facilities to cater for the bulk movement of passengers through the terminal. No EC support is available for such investment which means that funds would have to come from the taxpayer to switch the landing place of tourists from one side of the country to the other.

Only last week the new £12 million Castletroy Park Hotel was officially opened in Limerick. It was built by EGB, the company owned by Mr. Chuck Feeney, an Irish-American who knows his business. He is investing £12 million in the mid-west region. This investment comes to top of £3.5 million invested in refurbishment of the Great Southern Hotel at Shannon Airport, an investment of £1 million in a new hotel in Shannon town and an expansion programme by the Fitzpatrick-owned Shannon Shamrock and the Green Isle Hotel in Limerick.

I want to elaborate on the importance of Shannon Airport to the whole region. Irish-Americans are arriving and putting their money where their mouth is. Those people know where the American tourists want to go and what investment it takes to encourage them to come here. This has been described by a leading Dublin hotelier as a shop's lobby. The Shannon status should remain. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important issue and I compliment the Minister for Tourism, Transport and Communications on the work he has been doing in the past and I wish him well in the future.

Professor Raftery

I support this motion because tourism is an important industry with a great potential. Our tourist industry is as large as our dairying industry but unlike the dairying industry it is not subject to a quota which restricts its growth. Tourism can grow. There is remarkable scope for growth particularly by extending the tourist season, by offering a greater range of products and by concentrating more on tourists from mainland Europe where, until recently, we lacked identity.

Some years ago the citizen on the street in mainland Europe was likely to confuse Ireland with Iceland, England or Scotland. Fortunately that situation has improved, particularly in the past three years and principally through the good impression created by Jack Charlton and his army of supporters who were a credit to the country wherever they went. They left a very good impression, particularly in Italy during the World Cup series. Indeed, it is interesting to note that after that World Cup series that was a huge increase in the number of tourists from Italy. Bord Fáilte or, indeed, the Government budget could never afford to buy the kind of exposure they received through television which was beamed into millions of homes throughout Europe and beyond. We should be grateful to them and we must now cash in on the good publicity which we received during those important games.

The situation which existed in Britain ten years ago is somewhat similar to that in Ireland today. The views expressed by the first Conservative Governments of that period are on record as saying that tourism would turn Britain into a candyfloss and Jeeves society. Of course that has not happened but tourism has grown enormously in that country. Today the British tourist industry is worth £24 billion sterling per annum and one-third of that comes from overseas. This kind of growth creates employment and induces employment in other sectors such as food, transport, craft industries and retailing. In Ireland tourism, directly and indirectly, is responsible for 7 per cent of total employment. It is a growing industry far short of its potential but it is a seasonal industry and this detracts from the attractiveness for investment. We have to decide what must be done and we must set about doing it.

The first thing for Government to accept is that tourism is distinctly different from manufacturing industry. Employers and entrepreneurs in manufacturing have used the generous capital allowances to re-equip, modernise and regear. This is essential. The downside, however, to this is that many jobs and job opportunities are being replaced by machines. Tourism, on the other hand, is labour intensive so capital invested does not replace labour, it increases it. This difference should be recognised by Government and the capital allowance of 50 per cent should be retained during this time of development of our tourist industry, bearing in mind our enormous problem with unemployment.

My party have put jobs first. Without employment there is a very high fiscal price to be borne by the working community and the taxpayer but the cost does not end there. There is a social cost, the cost to individuals and families affected, the haemorrhage of emigration, the waste of potential which the community cannot bear and the rising crime rate, vandalism, drug addiction and so on, partly attributable to the large scale unemployment which we have. The Government have set high targets to double tourism in revenue and numbers and to create 25,000 new jobs. This is demand which has not been asked of any other sector. It has, however, been achieved at the half-way stage and this proves conclusively that the potential exists.

What about the tools to do the job and to reach the targets set out? Let us look at the record which is not a healthy one. The capital allowance has been reduced from 50 per cent to 25 per cent in 1991. The business expansion scheme has been abolished for hotels and reduced to £0.5 million per scheme. British Airways have pulled out of all three airports in the Republic. The B & I Line have a cloud hanging over them which should be resolved. It cannot be resolved now as we enter the peak season but it should have been resolved before it got to this stage. The Government grant to Bord Fáilte has remined at the same level for three years running. How can this be reconciled with the target set and with the need for jobs and foreign earnings?

Last week my party's committee on economic affairs met with Bord Fáilte to get their views. It is fair to say that we met people who are totally committed and who seem to know what they are talking about. Their job is to sell Ireland abroad and develop the industry at home. In terms of the first, we must remember that Ireland does not have a large network of support pushing our good news as other countries have. We can be sure, however, that all the bad news gets out and that the only organisation with funds to build Ireland's image professionally are Bord Fáilte. We are assisted greatly by the success of our athletes, music groups and our soccer team in raising consciousness of Ireland but this is not enough, it must be sold more effectively. To develop the industry we must look again at our investment and our investment climate should take the needs of tourism into account. We have done this for agriculture and for industry. Why not for tourism?

I would like also to refer to agri-tourism. This is an area which is just about to take off. It has great potential for the type of European "green" tourism which is emerging. If it is to be successful it will need careful planning and marketing. It is in all our interests that this be got right as it can provide a balance in retaining the farming community in the country rather than going along with the trend towards urbinisation which has occurred in every other Community country and, in the United States in particular.

There are, however, problems we have to address and some have been mentioned already this evening. Senator O'Toole mentioned the cost of getting here and he is right. However, there are other costs which are out of line when one gets here. The cost of hiring a car is way out of line with that of our competitors. In fact, it is now so expensive that some people prefer to come to the Republic via Northern Ireland where they hire their car to do their touring in the Republic.

It has also been mentioned that this is not a destination for those seeking sun, sea and sand and that is perfectly true. However, we all know millions of people want to get away from the stifling heat of the cities of central Europe and elsewhere and come to the cool, clean air we have in abundance in Ireland.

We also need to address the problem of tourist mugging. All of us should play a part in stopping that kind of gangsterism because it gives a very bad name to the country. In addition to the excellent work of Bord Fáilte it is time we reminded those in the trade, such as hoteliers, restaurateurs and so on, that it is their duty also to go out and sell their services. The primary function of Bord Fáilte is to improve the image of the country and to create the right sort of image, but the hard sell for each individual component of the tourist industry must be undertaken by those who have invested in the industry. Most of them have very little to do for many months of the year. Why do they not get up off their backsides, go out and get the business? That is what it is all about. They are reluctant to do so. They sit back and say that is the function of Bord Fáilte. It is in part but it is also their function to ensure that their own business is successful.

Much as been said about the efforts being made in the area of tourism and about our wonderful food and, of course, it is good food. I am always impressed by the fact that the first thing Americans say to me when they sit down to a meal is that they love our brown bread. Why they cannot make brown bread in America beats me since 75 per cent of the wheat we use in our brown bread is American wheat. However, that is beside the point.

Mr. McKenna

It is an art.

Professor Raftery

It may be an art, it may be that we are prepared to put the work into it but whatever it is, it certainly appeals to the Americans and to the Europeans.

We must do more to satisfy the needs of tourists. When tourists come to Ireland they may have a range of needs; they may want to go golfing, walking, shooting, fishing, cycling, hunting and so on. We must put packages together to suit those various requirements. I am aware of a move in Cork city, and in Cobh, in which I am participating, which is endeavouring to do this. We are endeavouring to put together a package which will keep tourists in the Cork area for more than one night. The Queenstown project, which is a most exciting project, aims to attract emigrants most of whom left this country from Queenstown, as it was then, or Cobh as it is now. About £2.5 million will be spent on that project. The distillery in Midleton is also building a museum which will be part of the attraction of the total area.

The Fota project already attracts about 200,000 visitors each year and of course, Blarney also attracts very large numbers each year. That is the kind of local initiative we must get going in every area in Ireland. As somebody already said, it must be done properly; it must be done with the primary aim of satisfying the customer not just with the aim of making money. If we do not satisfy the customers they will not return and will not tell their friends to come here. We have the potential and the ability to do it. It is up to us to have the commitment and the plan.

I am happy to support this motion and I sincerely hope the Minister will be successful in his endeavours to promote tourism and to help the tourist industry in future. However, I ask him to consider again the problem of funding for Bord Fáilte, the elimination of the BES scheme and the reduction from 50 per cent to 25 per cent in the capital investment allowance.

Mr. O'Keeffe

I welcome the remarks of Senator Raftery.

Professor Raftery

I forgot Ballincollig.

Mr. O'Keeffe

I do so in the knowledge that some of the things he said, particularly in relation to the BES do not appear to be on a par with what his colleagues said in the Dáil in relation to that scheme. There were scathing in their remarks about BES and what it achieved for us. I am glad that some logicality remains with Fine Gael in terms of Senator Raftery and, of course, he comes from Cork. We are very logical in Cork and he can see the advantages that emanated particularly from the tourism industry as far as Cork is concerned. I congratulate Senator Raftery for standing on his own and going against his colleagues in the Dáil and saying that the BES has been good for tourism because it has.

We have to look back before we can go forward. We have to look back to 1986 and 1987 and ask ourselves what this Government were faced with when they took office. There was doom and gloom and one of the first things they pinpointed was the tourism industry. For years we have been saying we cannot attract people in because we have not got the sun but suddenly there was a transformation and people began to realise, and the Fianna Fáil Government at that time realised, that we had something very special to offer. We had something to offer people in the US, the UK and in Europe and now we are extending that into the eastern countries and indeed to Australia and New Zealand. What did the Government do at that time? They set targets and I disagree with people who say that the targets they set in the first year were easy to achieve because of the percentage increase and that we were starting from a very low base. However the Government set themselves the target that from 1988 to 1992 they would increase the 2.1 million visitors to this country to 4.2 million, a difficult target.

It is pleasant to record also that the revenue doubled from £500 million to in excess of £1 billion. Quite rightly, Senator Raftery mentioned the fact that tourism is labour intensive. This has been pinpointed in other areas such as our industrial policy and what the IDA aim to achieve. They pinpointed the chemical and electronic industries, pharmaceuticals in general and computers. Those are all hi-tech industries. Hi-tech, unfortunately, means by and large that one needs graduate skills but is not very labour intensive.

Here we have a natural resource from which the Government have said we can generate activity and create 25,000 new jobs. What is pleasing about all this is that by 1990 all the targets set were achieved. There certainly have been difficulties in the current year with the Gulf War and the recession in the UK and the USA. I suppose it is fair to say that the target we set ourselves, a 15 per cent increase, in those circumstances will be difficult to achieve. Yet those targets will be achieved because, in fairness to Bord Fáilte, the diversification they are involved in and the markets they have targeted have come up trumps. It is a pleasure to report that the number of tourists from Europe has increased by 90 per cent over the last three years. Although there is a recession in the UK and the USA the European scene is a major growth area.

We have often heard it said in the past that Bord Fáilte are inclined to up their numbers. People have referred in the past to individuals and members of their own families right across the spectrum who have emigrated to the UK and the USA — the Jack Charltons — and who come back here seven times a year. At the end of the day they must be regarded as tourists. They come here by aeroplane or ferry and, generally speaking, those individuals spend money within our economy. They spend it in our restaurants, hotels and guesthouses and create a mainstay within the tourist sector that each of us wants to encourage. That is a major source of foreign revenue.

Another factor which is not recognised is that the growth rate here is three times greater than the international growth rate. We must be mindful of the fact that in a recent report, after a couple of years of this programme, the ESRI admit that 17,000 jobs have been created. That is ahead of target. We all must acknowledge that that is a major achievement. People like Martin Dully, the Minister and the previous Minister, must take credit for the initiatives they produced in 1987 and again in 1989 in bringing everybody in the tourist sector together and realising that there was potential for growth and job creation in the tourist industry. As a result, tourism is a major contributor to the economy.

Revenue from foreign tourists this year will break the barrier of £1.139 billion. When the value of the home market is added to that we are talking about a total of £1.5 billion. That must be seen as a significant money spinner for this economy. In fact, I understand that tourism revenue will exceed revenue from the beef industry this year. Everybody talks about the significance of agriculture and food but the tourist industry has potential for job creation and revenue generation which will exceed the beef industry. This is worth cogitating on and we should certainly continue the programme that has been set in place.

Senator Raftery referred to agri-tourism. It is incumbent on those of us with rural backgrounds to remember that the social fabric of society in rural areas is vitally important. In many areas every one of us is concerned that the rural fabric of society is being diminished indeed destroyed, by the removal of various resources from those areas. Tourism and rural agri-tourism are fundamental industries and play a vital role in keeping people and life in rural areas very much to the forefront. I welcome the fact that rural communities are now recognising the potential of agri-tourism. I am glad that £5 million is being provided from the EC to promote this area and I encourage co-ops in rural Ireland to come together to promote their areas because tourism is an industry that will produce jobs and keep people at home.

How was this possible? What circumstances prevailed to make this growth in tourism such a phenomenal one? One can never distance oneself from Government policy in relation to the achievements that have been made in tourism. Let us not forget the initiatives that brought about air fare liberation and the fact that inflation within this country is the lowest for 20 years, at 2.75 per cent. Let us pay tribute to the trade unions, the workers and employers who, together with the Government, have played a major role in ensuring that cost competitiveness has been a vital factor within this country since 1987. The achievements and the restraint of workers, the Government's economic policy and indeed the employers have fuelled and given impetus to a product that is vital to this country. For too long we looked for good weather. For too long we forgot about the attributes we had — the attribute of rain, the environment it created, the relaxation, the removal from stress, the friendliness, the ambience that is part and parcel of Irish nature. At last we have recognised that we have something that other people like to seek, that they will pay for, that they will travel for. We can provide that for them. I am pleased that the Government, in recognising that, have made £118 million available for tourist development by way of structural funding. They have provided, through basic incentives, through the BES scheme itself, and by keeping the economy very much in check to ensure that inflation and other areas are in line, that there is an attractiveness there.

I would like also, coming from a southern county, to acknowledge the Border areas and in particular to acknowledge the role played by the International Fund for Ireland and what they have done for this country. It would be remiss of me, particularly with the Minister who is present, not to mention a number of things that have happened in the Cork area. I want to pay a tribute to Minister Lyons because over the years he has taken a fair amount of stick about the Cork-Swansea and Swansea-Cork ferry. I am pleased that I have an opportunity this evening to say to the Minister that through his confidence in bringing people into Ringaskiddy through the Swansea-Cork ferry he has been exonerated and has been proved right. For the first time we will have a situation where the Swansea-Cork ferry is going to prove profitable in the year ahead. Not alone is that going to be good for Cork, it is going to be good for Cork city, it is going to be good for Cork county and it is going to be extremely good for Kerry.

This motion is timely because we have succeeded in lifting something that has been dormant and bringing about a situation where we have major job creation potential in a labour intensive industry. I say, "Well done, Minister, keep it up".

There are a number of avenues that I would suggest could be looked at. We have the IDA, we have SFADCo, we have Aer Lingus and we have Aer Rianta, each of them with a marketing budget. I ask, along with Bord Fáilte and Córas Tráchtála, could we at this stage bring all of these together and ask them if there is an opportunity for combining resources to bring more and more people, particularly from Australia, Japan, Taiwan, from the eastern Asian countries. There is a massive potential out there for growth in tourism that has yet remained untapped and is very expensive to tap. I would ask the Minister to have a look at that to see if there is an opportunity of bringing all of these strands together, saving money and bringing a budget together that would perhaps orientate itself into those particular areas.

I congratulate the Minister on the success of the Irish regional airports. Perhaps the integration of packages between the various airports in Ireland is something well worth looking at from the point of view of tourist development. I can never underestimate the essential value of the cheapness of playing golf here, its attractiveness, the attractiveness of fishing, of walking, of cycling and the other pursuits that are suitable to us. I thank the Acting Chairman for his patience, but it was appropriate for me to pay due honour for a job that has been well done to date.

Mr. Norris

I would like to say first of all how very much I admire Senator O'Keeffe's skill and professional presentation of his brief. I also admired his strong feeling for the dampness of Ireland as a tourist attraction. I am not quite sure that I share his confidence that people will visit the country in droves to admire the rain, but perhaps they will. I know, however, what he meant and that is that people are unlikely to visit this country for the weather, although this is a spectacularly beautiful evening here in Leinster House and is the kind of day on which the countryside of Ireland looks extraordinarly beautiful. The freshness and greenness of the countryside is one four identifying trade marks. I went to New York ten years ago for Bord Fáilte to do some broadcasting on radio and television across the United States. I remember one of the things they mentioned to me, when they were giving me a briefing before I left, was the fact that Ireland was unusual because it had a particular kind of brand identification. It is the only country which is immediately and automatically associated with a primary colour. Ireland has appropriated to itself the identifying mark of the colour green, it is the Emerald Isle. It is only when you have been abroad in some hotter climate and on the way home you fly over the country that you realise what an extraordinary impact the greenness has.

When I say flying over the country, that immediately raises the question of the stopover at Shannon. I have only a few points I want to make this evening, but I would like to put on record my strong feeling that it is very important in terms of tourism that we take on board this question, that we address the situation and that we understand once and for all that there must be direct flights into Dublin Airport. I do not think I am breaching confidentiality here, but the previous American Ambassador made it perfectly clear to me that there were a number of American companies, American airlines and American tour operators, who did not go out of their way to promote Ireland simply because we are the only country in Europe that does not have a direct flight into the capital. I believe this is something that has to be looked at. Everybody in the country, including people who come from the west, who come from the Limerick area, realise that the days of this idea of stopping over in Shannon are inevitably numbered; history is against them.

I say that despite the fact that I have the greatest regard for Shannon Airport and for people like Brendan O'Regan, who was an original and creative thinker in the early days at Shannon. We can take some pride in the fact that it was Brendan O'Regan's initiative that the duty free shops, for example, were developed and which are now, although an Irish idea, an international feature of travel. We can take great pleasure and pride in the fact that it was the Irish business initiative that was asked by a number of airlines, including in particular the Soviet authorities, to develop duty free facilities at some of the great Russian airports. I believe Shannon will survive, but there is a serious distortion of the tourist trade because of the irritation imposed on travellers by forcing them to land at Shannon.

I came back a few weeks ago from Chicago. I was lecturing in Madison and in Chicago. I drove from Madison, Wisconsin, to Chicago, got on the plane and had a marvellous flight. We went first to Boston. We stopped in Boston to take on extra passengers, food and so on. Then across the Atlantic, again very comfortable. Then you have the tedium of Shannon and then, and only then after a broken journey, to Dublin. I think you will find many people opting to overfly Ireland altogether if we do not get rid of this nonsense. I say this with no hostility to Shannon. It is my experience as an Irish person coming home that it is irritating and, believe me, American tourists, or a lot of them, are not going to bother. For people who want to go to Shannon it should be optional. If they want direct flights, let us have direct flights to Shannon; but let us also have direct flights into Dublin.

Mr. O'Keeffe

You are not being parochial, Senator?

Mr. Norris

I am not because it is not my parish. Shannon is not my parish. I am going to get a good deal more parochial, but I will stay for a while in the West. I noticed a phrase of Senator O'Keeffe's, with which I agree, when he spoke about the removal of resources. I would like to raise a question with the Minister, a very serious one, about a very beautiful part of the West that I know, not as well as I would like to, but I still know, that is Roundstone in Connemara. I would like to ask if the Minister has any views on the removal of sand for sale to some big State enterprise in Italy for the purposes of scientific experimentation, because it is such fine sand of such a consistent quality that it can be used in scientific experiments? May I place on the record of the House my strong support for the people of Connemara, and particularly of Roundstone, in defending the beaches of the West? As I am sure the Minister knows, despite the fact that we do not always have what would appeal to the international audience as bathing weather, the beautiful sandy beaches, which are not overcrowded, of the West are a joy to walk on, to picnic on and to bathe from. If we co-operate with their despoliation then we are making a very serious mistake.

Staying in the West of Ireland, I would like to raise another issue and that is this question of the interpretative centre at Mullaghmore. I have already raised this and I got a very strong answer from I think it was Minister Calleary on this issue. Since then a number of the people involved came back in contact with me and they indicate, for example, they are still extremely dissatisfied with the siting of the interpretative centre at Mullaghmore, although they know it is in a quarry, they know that the field adjoining it was already bulldozed and the typical Burren stone removed from it. Yet, they are dissatisfied, and not only they but also a list of international experts. I have it here from Plantlife. It was sent to me from the Natural History Museum in London. It is from David Bellamy. Richard Mabey, Andy Byfield, the whole list of these international experts, pleading that this should be reconsidered. It is a very brief pleading:

We, the undersigned, generally welcome any conservation work in the Burren. We recognise the need to conserve and interpret this unique environment. But, the Mullaghmore area, in the quiet heartland of the Burren, is not the place for a large interpretative facility. We stronly oppose the development of interpretative-tourist facilities at Mullaghmore.

We ought to be aware of the fact that we have used the provisions of our relationship with the European Community, and the fact that we are a Government rather than a private agency or a business firm, to derogate from the requirement to conduct a proper environmental impact assessment in Mullaghmore. Minister Calleary the last time said it is not going to have any impact at all. If he is so confident, let us have the environmental impact assessment. It is very bad leadership for our Government to derogate from the requirement simply because we are a Government and say "We are not going to do an environmental impact assessment. We are right. It is not going to have any impact on this very sensitive ecological area".

I would have to say that feelings are running high. I know there was a meeting in Corofin. It was widely quoted. Of 500 people only nine voted against it. The reason is that the people from the other areas did not bother going. They believe it is a ploy by people in a small localised area and I have to say, and I say it with regret, that they also see it as having elements of party politics in it. I am not going to read the letter I received into the record of the House because the language in it is strongly abusive of Fianna Fáil and simply might raise people's hackles. I would like to place on the record of the House the fact that there is strong suspicion of what is going on there. It may be unjustified. May I say that there are other meetings to be held in which considerable majorities will vote, not against an interpretative centre but against its location at that point.

However, I have raised this issue already and it would be foolish of me to over-emphasise this issue except to indicate to the Minister that it is a continuing one and if we only regard the immediate economic repercussions of the placement of such an interpretative centre then we may very well at the end of the day kill the goose that lays the golden egg, as we have very nearly done in the Dublin area.

I would like to come back now to say a little bit about a really parochial issue and that is the issue of James Joyce and the Dublin of James Joyce — in other words, cultural tourism. The reason Bord Fáilte sent me to America is because they regarded me as having some small authority in this area because of my love for Joyce and my understanding of his works and so on. I am very glad to say we have received a promise of money from the European Community, from the European Structural Fund, and we are getting close to being on target with this. I would just say that the Gulf War, as has been noted in the terms of this motion, has had an impact. It has had an impact not only on tourism but on corporate sponsorship, particularly in terms of airline leasing companies and various other big corporate sponsors. It is not easy to get the kind of matching finance that we need. We have got £300,000 waiting to be drawn down from the European Structural Fund. People on my committee, my broad and myself, have got to create the matching funding. We have gone a fair way towards it, but we are behind our target partly, because of the impact of the war, as recognised in this motion.

I will put the following proposition to the Minister. We have been passed by Dublin Corporation for a grant of £50,000 from the lottery funding. This money will enable us to draw down further funds in terms of an extra tranche which if we do not draw down by Christmas, will disappear into the European coffers. May I suggest in the light of the impact that Joyce has clearly on tourism, the Minister might be prepared to use his good offices with his colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Deputy Flynn, to see if it would be possible for us to get at least some large portion of this allocation when the next slice of lottery funding becomes available.

It is particularly appropriate for me to say this because just today I received a very interesting and moving letter from the press officer of Trocaire, who has just come back from the Kurdish refugee camps. In the letter he said he was writing to me particularly because of my interest in Joyce, which was well known, that my name came up and so on. He said: "When I was in the Kurdish refugee camp I went to talk to this ragged man. When I said I was from Ireland he said James Joyce. I said ‘what do you know about James Joyce?' He said ‘I have translated A Portrait of the Artist and Ulysses’.” that, to my mind, is an extraordinary indication of what I have always maintained: if anywhere across the world you mention Dublin, or even Ireland, the answer will be James Joyce, because he has identified this country. Anywhere you go and you mention Joyce, people think Dublin; if you mention Dublin people think Joyce.

We are approaching Bloomsday. I remember when it was not the most popular festival in this country, when there was a certain view taken of the late James Joyce. I suppose Patrick Kavanagh really pioneered Bloomsday in 1955, but it was a very small celebration. We have now got to a stage where it has almost become a national celebration, where the tourist board are plugged into it. I am going to several functions next Sunday on Bloomsday which I helped to arrange. At one of them there are going to be three national television stations, which we directed from the James Joyce Cultural Centre to the Joyce breakfast out in Dún Laoghaire. That indicates the kind of impact there is.

I would like to make just two very brief further points. The first is the necessity to protect what we have got, to create something. Of course, coming from North Great Goerge's Street, I see that the possibility of an entire coherent area, not an architectural zoo, but a living place where people live, with something like 35, North Great George's Street involved in it, as a tourist draw, like Williamsburg in the United States.

Could I point out that yesterday Dublin City Council passed a unanimous resolution looking for a law on listed buildings to protect them against the ravages of imprudent or malicious owners. This would be a very useful thing for the Minister to take on board. May I point out the kind of worry I have? We have talked about resources. We know people come because of culture and so on. But our eighteenth century heartland is still withering away. There have been some tax incentives, but they only work for business. What you need is an injection of cash. What you need is to protect the buildings. We have seen No. 7 Eccles Street demolished. There will be a Street party hosted by the nuns in Eccles Street on Sunday but, there will be no building. That entire side of Eccles Street has been destroyed. Mountjoy Square is in flitters. We need a degree of protection.

May I sound one further little alarm? Just around the corner, a week or two ago, when I was coming down to Leinster House in the evening, I spotted a big fire, it was Merrion Hall. We talk about the possibility of so many fires being around that maybe they are suspicious or malicious. I do not know. I would not want to make an accusation in that case. But we have to be very careful. Just around the corner from Merrion Hall there is a very well known Joycean landmark, Swenys — spelt with one "e"— a name that reverbrates throughout the Joycean world. It is where Leopold Bloom buys his bar of Lemon's soap on 16 June 1904. I have taken friends of the Joyce family there. At present it is imperilled. The upper windows are left wide open. If we are serious about Joyce we have to preserve the remaining landmarks associated with his career.

Mr. Fitzgerald

To conclude on this motion on tourism, I will try not to be parochial but that is very hard coming from a county like Kerry. If the Minister was speaking he would find it very hard not to be parochial, coming as he does, from a county like Cork, because both counties enjoy something like 27 per cent of the tourists coming to Ireland. As has been rightly pointed out by Senator O'Keeffe, in 1987 the Government decided that tourism would have to be concentrated on in a very big way. We have all the natural ingredients to attract tourists here; all that is needed is to organise the industry properly and get the show on the road. Over the past three years the Government and, indeed, Bord Fáilte and other agencies throughout the country, have done a tremendous job in attracting tourists here.

We have a good, clean environment. I suppose it is safe to say that our environment is probably the cleanest in Europe. I remember on one occasion, when the Taoiseach was on television, the interviewer talked about pollution in our rivers and about fish kills and remarked, "You never hear of fish kills in the rivers of Europe." The Taoiseach was very fast to reply, "There are no fish in the rivers of Europe. They are gone." Angling throughout this country is a very big source of income. It was gratifying the other day when the Fisheries (Amendment) Bill was concluded here in the Seanad because we can now go back again to promoting angling in the country.

A number to things bother me, and I have to be a bit parochial now. We have a lovely lake in Dingle called Peddlers Lake. The Central Fisheries Board decided last year that they would restock this lake with rainbow trout. It was an added amenity to our peninsula. Over a three month period — the amount of money might seem small — £3,300 was paid by anglers to fish in that lake. From memory, 148 of those anglers were foreign anglers. The amount of money that would have been spent locally from 148 anglers would be in the region of £150,000. That is a huge contribution to a peninsula like the Dingle peninsula. Unfortunately, An Taisce came along and objected to the restocking of this lake, because they said it was a particular type of lake and that it should remain the way it was. I think An Taisce are sticking their noses into a lot of good developments when they should not be doing so. They are sticking their noses into the interpretative centre down in Clare when they should not be doing so. It was quite clear on the news last night that Clare County Council were unanimous in their decision to allow an interpretative centre to go ahead there.

We cannot have it both ways. If we attract people into the country and show them what we have to give, places such as the Burren and many other places, we have to allow them to traverse those parts of the country. If we bring them to the Ailwee Cave or Crag Cave down in Castleisland and if we advertise these places, then we have to allow them to go through. It is no good saying afterwards that there are too many people coming to these places and that they are going to do damage. I would say, in regard to An Taisce and all their objections, that they have held up about two or three developments in Dingle at present. If An Taisce had been around when the buldings on the Rock of Cashel were being constructed, I am sure they would have objected to it but today they are trying to preserve them. They cannot have it both ways.

As far as I am concerned, all these magnificent places we have in Ireland should become alive in the same manner as Kilmainham Hospital has been renovated and brought back to be a living building. In the same way Dublin Castle has been renovated and brought to life again. Dublin this year is enjoying possibly a bigger tourist boom than normal because it is the European city of culture and heritage for 1991. It has some of the finest buildings in the country and the people of Europe and the world should come to Dublin and see them.

I support this motion. I congratulate the Minister for all he has done for tourism. I thank him and the Taoiseach for bringing Farranfore airport up to international standards.

Question put and agreed to.