No Promises on 9% VAT

The lobby to restore 9% VAT on hospitality services and the cap on numbers passing through Dublin Airport dominated discussions at the ITIC conference which attracted a large gathering of tourism industry professionals to the Royal Convention Centre in Dublin.

An introductory video showed a range of industry leaders call for the concession, but Minister Catherine Martin gave no guarantees when quizzed by host Dearbhall McDonnell, saying only that it is a matter for Finance Minister Jack Chambers.

She also said there is no legal mechanism outside of the planning process to enable the passenger cap at Dublin Airport to be lifted. She said it is a planning issue, and it is not for politicians to interfere with that process. She favoured the development of regional airports as a solution, saying that this would enable visitors to “fly into the heart of Ireland”.

Responding to a question about the difficulties experienced by many hospitality businesses, she said that her absolute priority is to secure funding in the Budget for supports for the agencies that can support the sector. She said this could be in the form of increased marketing, product development, resilience, recruitment and digitalisation.

Back with the Dublin Airport debate, Kenny Jacobs, chief executive of Dublin Airport operator daa, said it was not realistic to think that regional airports could pick up the overflow from the passenger cap in Dublin.

“The whole notion that cap Dublin and it will move to the regions is simplistic, naive and doesn't reflect how the airlines work,” he said. “It also doesn't reflect how EU open skies and EU regulation works.”

He said the regions should be supported and airlines encouraged to go there, “but capping Dublin, all you are doing is immediately costing jobs to the Irish economy, you are immediately hurting Irish tourism...and you are giving Irish aviation and Irish tourism a bad look, because it has created this cloud of uncertainty around the place.”

Donal Moriarty, the chief corporate affairs officer at Aer Lingus, said that the idea of transferring traffic from Dublin Aiport to regional airports does not work from an airline economics perspective or a passenger demand perspective.

“That's because Dublin Airport is a hub, and the component parts of the traffic at Dublin Airport are connecting traffic and point to point traffic.”

John Concannon, formerly of Global Ireland and now Ambassador-designate to Canada, described Ireland’s soft power in the areas of diplomacy, peace-keeping, missionary work, culture and creativity, which journalist Jon Sopel described as “like nothing I have ever seen in America”.