Cullen rejects 'stay at home' invitation

TOURISM PLANS:THE GOVERNMENT'S annual exodus to St Patrick's Day events across the world will continue despite calls for Ministers to stay in Ireland, according to the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Martin Cullen.

The trips are too important for the communities they visit for ministers not to travel next year, he said.

Cullen was responding to a proposal from the Irish Tourist Industry Confederation that, instead of jetting around the globe, the Government should invite dignitaries to Ireland.

The confederation’s chief executive, Eamonn McKeon, had suggested that ministers invite “heavy hitters” such as Frédéric Mitterand, the French culture minster, and Joe Biden, the US vice-president, who had ancestors in Co Mayo, to a multimillion-euro party in Ireland.

They and other invitees would attract press attention, and the move would showcase Ireland’s announcement that “we are open for business again”, said McKeon, who added that it would provide a fillip in the worst of times for the industry.

But on Thursday Cullen rejected the idea. “You have to understand that the demand on the global scale now for Irish Ministers, in particular, to attend St Patrick’s Day functions is huge,” he said.

He added that the private sector had organised extremely successful events, such as the Ryder Cup and Volvo Ocean Race, but that the St Patrick’s Day idea “presupposed that all the functions around Washington won’t happen or they won’t happen throughout Europe or throughout Asia, where we have a very substantial reach. You have to respect people that have huge time for Ireland internationally. You can’t just say, ‘That is great, off you go and do it, but we have no interest in supporting you.’ I think that would be appalling”.

The Minister was speaking as the Tourism Renewal Group launched its report outlining urgent “survival” measures and other moves that might expand the industry by 2011 “if recovery comes by then”, according to the group’s chairman, Maurice Pratt.

The group said the “invisible” nature of the industry needed to be tackled, and Pratt pointed out that tourism provided 128,400 jobs – more than agriculture, forestry and fishing, which combined employ 110,700, or financial, insurance and real-estate services, which combined employ 104,000.