Irish tour operators are challenging Bord Failte over the transfer and contracting out of a national tourism information and reservation database, the High Court was told yesterday.
Mr Justice McCracken gave leave to Tour Contractors (Ireland) Ltd (TCI) to seek a number of orders, by way of judicial review, against Bord Failte. TCI is the Irish operations company of Brendan Tours, which is a member of the Irish Tour Operators' Forum.
In an affidavit, Ms Catherine Reilly, a director of TCI, said Bord Failte had developed a national information and reservation base known as Gulliver, which was initially operated by Bord Failte and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.
In addition to Gulliver, Bord Failte also provided further supports to the Irish tourism sector, including the operation of a call centres service and the development of a Bord Failte website.
These services facilitated tourists, tour operators and travel agents in seeking information on Irish holiday destinations and on Irish tourism generally, she said.
On July 4th, 1997, Bord Failte had sold the Gulliver system and contracted out the call centres service to Gulliver InfoRes Services Ltd, in which Fexco, a private unlimited company with its registered office in Killorglin, Co Kerry, now held 74 per cent of the issued share capital.
A joint-venture company owned by Bord Failte and the NITB held 26 per cent. As part of the sale agreement, there was restricted use of the website so that reservations could only be made through Gulliver on that site.
Ms Reilly said the effect of the agreements between Bord Failte and Fexco was that these public information and service supports to the Irish tourism market had been sold into private ownership and control.
The agreements concluded by Bord Failte with Fexco had the effect of treating public information support services as commercial products which not only should be self-financing but should also be exploited to generate profits for Fexco as the undertaking having control and responsibility for the provision of those information services.
In so acting, Bord Failte had created a situation whereby the public interest of securing maximum information supports to the tourism market had been subordinated to the private interest and profit concerns of Fexco, which under the agreements has a monopoly on the provision of these information services, she said.
In permitting this state of affairs, it was contended that Bord Failte had impermissibly divested itself of its statutory function to regulate and control public information services which it had developed to encourage and promote tourist traffic in and to the State.
The agreements gave Fexco the opportunity to assume a monopolistic control of the services and determine the conditions and restrictions upon which it would provide these services to the Irish tourism sector.
It is submitted that Bord Failte has effectively sold public assets which occupy a strategic position in the Irish tourism market in circumstances where it has no statutory authority to do so.