RURAL ECONOMY:LABOUR IN government would "put on the green jersey" to promote Irish agriculture, the party's agriculture spokesman Seán Sherlock said at the launch of its plan for the rural economy.
He said agriculture was a vital area for job creation and the kernel of party policy would be to help retain the €1.3 billion in EU funding farmers receive and the implementation of the Food Harvest 2020 report.
The promotion of tourism was also vital for the rural and national economy, and agriculture and food and tourism employed 400,000 people in this country.
“With proper planning and political leadership both these sectors can be drivers of economic recovery,” he said.
Mary Upton said the 18 per cent drop in visitor numbers from Britain and the European mainland had to be reversed.
“The tiny number of visitors we are attracting from Asia must be addressed as a matter of urgency as it represents a massive market but we are simply not tapping into it,” she said. “One of the main problems is that it is very, very difficult for anyone from China or India to get a holiday visa to visit Ireland,” she said.
“We must simplify the visa system and also put in place language programmes here so Irish people will be able to communicate with these visitors,” she said.
The document proposes intensive marketing campaigns, improving external and internal access and more use of web-based tools to promote Ireland.
There was also a proposal to extend Irish Rail’s free travel scheme for over 66-year-olds to all CIÉ services at off-peak times to encourage the “silver market”.
Mr Sherlock said Labour would establish a dairy taskforce to reform the sector and promote technological change, especially in the area of improved genetic standards. It would also, he said, support a model of single farm payments that would reward innovation and lead to further inclusion of younger farmers.
