Tourism Industry
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-28
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Peter Burke (FG), Longford-Westmeath

We have had strong growth this year, which is important to recognise, particularly since we brought in a new tourism policy in December, A New Era for Irish Tourism, which looks at bringing new strategies to lengthen the season and at ensuring we have a strong culinary strategy this year that will enhance the value proposition across the country, and, hopefully, an accommodation strategy that will look at viability for hotels.
I want to be careful in terms of airlines. Many airlines are consolidating their routes. If they run two flights and they are half full, they will only run one. We want to be careful how that translates into cuts in numbers. We are encouraging the airlines and working with them on this huge challenge. We have a lot of capital schemes coming out from August for Fáilte Ireland looking at enhancing visitor attractions, working with the 46,000 SMEs and, hopefully, getting capital into them to enhance their value proposition. Through our viability mechanism - our VAT cut - we are giving them 4.5 % on their margin. We need 6% and 7% growth on domestic and overseas tourism, which will be important for the communities the Deputy represents.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-28