Enterprise Policy
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-21
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John Connolly (FF), Galway West

The Tánaiste will be aware that the national planning framework proposes to distribute the future population growth of the country equally between the greater Dublin region, the regional cities and the metropolitan areas that surround them. To facilitate that, we need enhanced infrastructure development, and we need to increase housing options for people in those locations. We also need to look at enterprise and fiscal measures to promote the development of industries at home and attract greater foreign direct investment into those regional cities.
I do not think we should rule out targeted fiscal measures at those locations.
There is one other thing I would like to get the Tánaiste's opinion on. We have seen it recently with Dublin City Council. In fact, I think Galway City Council made the initial invitation to or request of the Department of Finance to introduce some type of tourism tax, where the regional or local authority could benefit from additional revenues generated by people coming to spend time in the cities.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-21