Hanafin urges clarity on Ryanair plan to boost tourism by ending travel tax

MINISTER FOR Tourism Mary Hanafin has challenged Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary to say exactly how he would fulfil his promise to increase the number of tourists to Ireland if the €10 travel tax was dropped.

Ms Hanafin told the Dáil it would be preferable not have an air travel tax, but Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan “considers it an important revenue” measure, yielding €125 million in a full year. The tax was a “core part of her discussions” with Mr Lenihan ahead of the budget and specific commitments from Ryanair could help her case to have the tax dropped.

Ms Hanafin who has already met Mr O’Leary and Aer Lingus chief executive Christoph Mueller to discuss their concerns about the impact of the tax, said: “I would need to know from Michael O’Leary and from Ryanair what exactly we will get in return. What will we get by way of additional passengers? What will Ryanair be able to do by way of additional routes coming into the country or a commitment that routes coming into Ireland will not be stopped? That would give me the basis for an argument to be able to make in the context of the budget, with the Minister for Finance.”

Fine Gael’s tourism spokesman Jimmy Deenihan, who raised the issue during question time, called on the Minister to consider suspending the tax for two years and challenge the airlines to bring in extra people. “It would then be in their hands to respond.”

He said Mr O’Leary “has said that if the tax was scrapped he could bring six million extra tourists to Ireland over a five-year period and increase employment by 6,000 people”.

Mr Deenihan said the Netherlands had scrapped a similar tax although it was raising over €300 million, “because it was felt that €1 billion was being lost to the economy through discouraging people from coming to Holland”.

Referring to the loss of more than “40,000 jobs and the decline of €1 billion in tourism income” he said “surely the Minister and the Government should make every effort possible to remove this tax”. The Minister acknowledged that from meeting the airlines “that it impacts on their choice of where to put their routes. That is an even more significant issue for us. If planes are not coming into Ireland tourists cannot come.”