Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers has strongly backed developing a tourism levy to fund investment in Dublin and other cities countrywide.
On Tuesday, Chambers said he fully supports such a step, adding, “it’s a policy that Government should advance in the period ahead” between the Department of Finance and the Department of Housing.
The Dublin West TD is the second Fianna Fáil Cabinet Minister to signal support for such a measure in recent days, with Minister for Housing James Browne also indicating he would have no problem with such a levy.
The Government would have to pass enabling legislation, which would allow local authorities to impose the levy.
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Moreover, the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party also backed the introduction of such a levy at its meeting last week, following a proposal from Dublin North West TD Paul McAuliffe, while the Seanad will hear a motion put down by the party’s Senators on the matter on Wednesday.
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Chambers said the revenues could be ringfenced for local use, and argued multiple other cities around the world had imposed such a levy.
“When local authorities are looking for revenue-raising powers and are willing to do that in the context of managing their own role and expenditure footprint, I think that’s something Government should be open to advancing,” he said.
Fine Gael Ministers, including Minister for Tourism Peter Burke and Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan, have previously flagged concerns about such a step. However, it has some support on that party’s backbenches, including from its Dublin spokesman James Geoghegan.
Any move to introduce a levy – which would be imposed on tourists staying in hotels on a nightly basis – would likely face strong resistance from the tourism and hotels sector, which has already flagged its concerns.
A spokesman for Tánaiste Simon Harris said that the idea merits consideration, but noted concerns had previously been raised, so it had to be considered in that context. He also said the final decision to impose a levy would be a decision for local authorities.
Chambers, who is deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, also firmly rejected a contention from some of his party’s backbenchers that Government plans to scrap the triple lock are a “fundamental change” in party policy.
A group of backbenchers has written to the party criticising the plans, which would remove the requirement for a UN Security Council resolution when deploying more than 12 troops overseas.
Chambers said it was “absolutely not” a fundamental change for Fianna Fáil. And he argued the party had put a change of the triple lock in its 2024 general election manifesto and programme for government agreed with Fine Gael and Independents the following year.
“We welcome broad debate within our parliamentary party around the specific reforms which are being advanced in the context of the legislation,” said Chambers. He said the reason the change was being proposed is that “we didn’t want another major superpower in the UN being able to veto what Ireland did in the context of our deployment of troops”.
Speaking separately in Dublin on Tuesday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin again stood over the Government’s decision to end the triple lock. He said Ireland had to end its decades-long peacekeeping mission in Lebanon because of the US stance on the Security Council, with a lot of input from Israel.
Martin added that the possibility of an alternative mission there was being explored where there would be monitoring, and where international military forces would help train and support the Lebanese Army. He said Irish troops would not be able to participate unless there was a reform in the law.
Asked about the future of Martin as Fianna Fáil party leader, Chambers replied that the Cork South-Central TD retained his support and that there was “still widespread support for his leadership across the public”.
A spokesman for Harris said the discussion within Fianna Fáil was a matter for that party, adding he had made his view on the matter clear, while noting comments by Minister for Defence Helen McEntee last weekend, who told RTÉ radio the change was “essential” and there was “no ambiguity” on what was agreed in the programme for government on the triple lock.
