While I welcome this debate, I am representing the constituency of Cork North-Central. In 2034, Cork city will be celebrating its 850th birthday. It is a maritime city, with strong harbour connections and great stories. It has a huge natural harbour as the Minister knows. Our tourism industry is doing well when it comes to the number of cruises, which is up this year. Seamus Heaney from Visit Cork has been doing a tremendous job with a very small team of staff. I am not sure whether the Minister has had the opportunity to visit Seamus and his team, but they warrant tremendous respect for the amount of investment they have brought to Cork and the tremendous work that goes on in Visit Cork. Thousands of tourists visit Blarney Castle every day but the problem is that Blarney does not retain those tourists. They are not staying there overnight. Equally with the cruises that come into the city, people are being taken on buses to Tipperary and Waterford. They are not investing in the city and the greater Cork area. As the Minister knows, Cork produces over 61% of the country's artisan foods. Cork is the largest producer of these foods. The English Market is doing a tremendous job as well. The recent royal visit prompted a lot of success and a lot of visitors. However, I do not see Tourism Ireland or the Department of tourism recognising Cork city as a place where you can invest in artisan food and where there is an investment opportunity for Cork to bring more people into Cork, to have the food and wine experience. The Minister is familiar with the Huguenot and Jacobite story in Cork as well, and the great wine houses of Bordeaux, which have direct connections to the Wine Geese of Cork, for example, Lawton's Quay and the great Pierre Lawton, who still operates his family's business, the Hennessy family, etc. There is so much needed for Cork and there is so much needed for investment in Cork. We need to have an anchor tenant and we need to have an anchor business as an attraction to Cork. I am asking the Minister to bring in some sort of moneys and funding to the local authority to allow it to invest in a large anchor complex, such as what Guinness has in Dublin with the Guinness Storehouse.

Sentiment score: 0.31