Businesses welcome Griffin appointment
THE Irish Hotels Federation and Tralee Chamber Alliance have welcomed Brendan Griffin’s appointment as Minister for Tourism and Sport.
IHF President Joe Dolan said Minister Griffin can play an important role in ensuring that national policy focuses on supporting and developing the hospitality industry, which is Ireland’s largest indigenous employer.
“This appointment comes at a pivotal time for the sector. The recent strong recovery in Irish tourism has been supported by a range of targeted Government measures that have been enormously positive for our industry,” said Mr Dolan.
“In the last six years we have created over 50,000 jobs with the tourism industry as a whole now supporting approximately 230,000 jobs. We look forward to working closely with Minister Griffin to build on that progress and to facing the very real challenge that Brexit is posing to our industry,” Mr Dolan said.
Kerry has a higher dependency on tourism that any other county according to Kerry County Council’s 2016 Economic and Community Plan.
In Kerry 14,000 people are directly employed in tourism and hospitality related jobs with one in five of all jobs in the county in some way dependent on the tourist trade.
Tralee Chamber Alliance President John Drummey also welcomed Minister Griffin’s appointment.
“Being the tourism capital of Ireland, it is fitting this position should be filled by a Kerry-based TD. Tralee is the capital of Kerry, the official hub from where to explore the Wild Atlantic Way in Kerry and Ireland’s Best Large Tourism Town since 2015. We trust that Minister Griffin will work closely with Tralee Chamber Alliance to support our efforts to make Tralee Ireland’s premier town to live, work and visit,” he said.