Blarney Castle chief: Tourists want to be served by Irish staff

THE owner of one of Ireland’s biggest visitor attractions has claimed the tourism industry needs to keep Irish people instead of foreigners to curb the loss of overseas visitors.

Sir Charles Colthurst of Blarney Castle, Co Cork, said tourists want to be served by Irish staff because they come to this country for the banter and the friendliness of our people rather than our weather.

“If you ever did the Cork-Dublin train regularly a few years ago there was a marvellous man on the train, everybody would have remembered him. In the same way, there was a great porter in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin,” he said.

“Tourists remember these quality of staff, they want to see Irish people in these jobs. They want to be served in Kerry by a barman who is from Kerry. They don’t want somebody from Belgrade, with all due respect,” he said.

Sir Charles said the main job of his staff, most whom are paid above the minimum wage, is to be as pleasant as possible to tourists.

“Any tourist’s worst day is if they’ve had a bad experience at any of our tourist attractions. My staff are second to none in terms of their sense of humour, banter and Blarney,” he said on RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Pat Kenny show.

“They’re all Irish, I don’t think if you were kissing the Blarney stone, with all due respect to our East European friends, that you’d want to be held by somebody who didn’t speak English. You’ve got to do the banter, you’ve got to do the Blarney,” Sir Charles said.

On the same programme, SIPTU official Ethel Buckley said it is derogatory and offensive to speak about migrant workers in such a way. She said around a third of workers in the hotel industry are migrant workers and the rest are Irish.

Ms Buckley cited employment inspection figures for 2009 which show that 73% of hotels visited were not compliant with basic employment law such as appropriate pay rates, overtime rates and breaks.

Sir Charles said his visitor numbers have fallen by more than 20% over the past two years, but minimum wages set for sectors like hospitality are increasing difficulties for employers.