FG claims National Conference Centre delay costing €50m

Fine Gael has accused the Government of dragging its feet on the development of a National Conference Centre.

Fine Gael Spokesperson on Tourism Jimmy Deenihan claimed that despite funding being available, the project has been bogged down in the tendering process which has made little progress since it got underway in January.

The country is losing out on a very lucrative market through the lack of the centre capable of hosting large conferences, according to Deputy Deenihan.

“Business tourism is worth about €40bn internationally. Every city in Europe has a dedicated conference centre - in fact, Barcelona has four," he said.

"Ireland is losing out about €50m per year at least because we have haven’t a centre that could take large conferences,” he claimed.