Visits to Ireland up 3.2% in 2004

There was a 3.2% increase in foreign visits to Ireland last year, with the figure up 8.9% in December alone.

The Central Statistics Office said there were 436,200 overseas trips to Ireland in December 2004 compared with 400,400 in the same month of 2003.In the whole of last year, there were 6,574,500 visits to Ireland, an increase of 3.2% on the figure of 6,369,000 for 2003.