Tourism Promotion
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-13
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George Lawlor (LAB), Wexford

I welcome some of the initiatives the Minister has announced. There are markets we can work on. I gave the example of Savannah in Georgia before. A number of Ministers have visited Savannah as part of the St. Patrick’s Day connections. Savannah has huge Irish connections. The city has a population of 170,000. Last year, it had 17 million visitors. If one considers that Australia had about 10 million in total, this is a vast market we should tap into. There is no direct flight to Savannah. I flew there a number of times to celebrate with the local people because of the strong Wexford connections. It took me 24 hours to get there despite the massive connections we have with that part of North America in south-east Georgia. We really need to tap into it and work with it. We will reap the rewards and the dividends will come back to Ireland Inc.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:30+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-13