After seven months of anguish for the hospitality and tourism sector, interspersed with bouts of intense lobbying and loud criticism of official policy, the Government finally “gets it”, according to tourism industry representatives. With Budget 2021, the Coalition has assembled an enormous bundle of measures for a sector that supported 260,000 jobs before it was upended by the pandemic. It was co-chaired by Catherine Martin, the Minister for Tourism, and Leo Varadkar, the Tánaiste and Minister for Business. “The Tánaiste stayed for 1½ hours listening to our concerns,” said Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, the chief executive of the umbrella group the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation. From the industry’s perspective, this budget was all about helping it survive the dark days of winter ahead.

Source: The Irish Times October 14, 2020 04:00 UTC