Budget 2026 (Enterprise, Tourism and Employment): Statements Seanad Éireann — 2025-10-14 ============================================================ Martin Conway (IND), Administrative Panel Gabhaim buíochas leis an Acting Cathaoirleach. Of course I will. I commend my colleague Senator Kennelly on espousing the virtues of Kerry. Indeed he is right. Clare, across the Shannon, has equally as much to offer. The Minster is very welcome to the House. I am delighted that tourism has been added to his brief. When we look back to 2010 to 2012, when we were on our knees as a country, the first industry that bounced back was tourism because we approached it strategically. We created product that was attractive internationally. It started with The Gathering and then it evolved to the Wild Atlantic Way, which was the first time we had a joined-up thinking approach in marketing us as a country, the west of Ireland from to Donegal to Cork, in a professional way internationally and in a way that can be attractive, similar to camino walks in other countries. We need to build on that. Back in 2017 or 2018, I tabled a motion in the House that the 9% VAT rate would be retained permanently in the tourism industry because of what it did as a budgetary measure that really did have impact. Funnily enough, my Private Member's motion actually did not pass because people had reservations about it simply because of the cost. I would argue that it is the right decision and, as time evolves, it will be proven to be the right decision because there are tens of thousands of potential jobs yet to be created in the tourism sector in this country. There are also the tens of thousands of jobs currently that need to be protected. This is one measure that will protect them. It is not coming in until next July and that the minimum wage is increasing after Christmas, so there is a lacuna of a few months that some businesses will find extremely difficult. I also welcome the Minister's creative thinking when it comes to tourism. I urge the Minister to look at some sort of a scheme to support villages to retain the fabric they have. A village is only village when it does have its pub, its shop, its coffee shop and somewhere for people to eat. I welcome and really support the gold-plated tourism products. In County Clare we have the Cliffs of Moher, which is one of the top tourist attractions in the country, but we also need silver-plated ones. It is pointless in County Clare for a bus to come from Dublin to the Cliffs of Moher, spend four hours at the Cliffs of Moher and then for the bus to go back to Dublin. We need to create a two- to three-day package where the buses will come and absolutely they will visit the gold-plated facility but there are lots of silver-plated facilities as well. We need to keep investing in them to make sure they are up to best international standard. We cannot let our silver-plated facilities dwindle because of the lack of investment. The joined-up thinking with rural development and the work involved was done by Heather Humphreys when she was the Minister, and Michael Ring before her, investing in swimming pools, in visitor attractions, in museums, in community hubs and so on that are the silver-plated facilities that benefit communities as a drop down from the gold-plated facilities. It is important that they are supported. We are living in an Internet age and a digital marketing age. As a country, we need to be spending the bulk of our international marketing budget in the digital space. I welcome that there is a team within the Minister's Department that is working on digital marketing, but I really think there needs to be a facility for ramping that up significantly, particularly in the lucrative markets like the European market, the American market and the new growing markets in places like Asia. When they come, it is the trip of a lifetime and they spend money. The car rental sector also needs to be supported. The Leader, Senator Kyne, will be talking to the Minister on that specific issue in the coming days. We have had an engagement with our former Oireachtas colleague in that area. It would be very useful if there were a fund available within the Minister's Department to support and engage when particular elements of the tourism industry find themselves in trouble. It worked during Covid when we were able to intervene and save businesses. I am one of the people that does not believe in saving businesses that are not possible to save long term. There is no point in government money being spent to prop up a business that ultimately will fail if it does not get government money but there are a lot of businesses that need a leg up. We will find that, between January and July, some businesses will suffer because of the minimum wage increase in advance of the VAT reduction. There needs to be a fund that is swift, quick and reactive and can intervene to stabilise businesses to prevent them from going under, which potentially they could do in the short term. The Minister has a business mind and he thinks that way. I encourage him to make sure his officials are flexible with those types of schemes because they can be the difference between a business dying and a business surviving and, ultimately, the preservation and retention of jobs. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-10-14/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:13+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-10-14