Irish Examiner view: Case for compo

Tourism finances

The Citywest Hotel in Dublin is one of the hotels being used to house war refugees and international protection applicants. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

While the Government has had to deal with one “no-win” situation — the lifting of the eviction ban brings no votes for compounding human misery — it must now face another significant challenge, the outlook for tourism in 2023.

New figures show that some of our leading tourist counties have given more than 50% of their bed stock over to war refugees and international protection applicants. 

A dozen others have 30% of their resource allocated in this way. 

The State is paying for around 48,000 beds out of a total of 180,000 available nationwide while it provides shelter for nearly 81,000 people. Government requirements are still increasing. It ordered an additional 1,000 beds last month.

Officials and tourism experts calculate that this might result in a loss of €1bn revenue this year based on the accepted industry metric that for every €1 outlay on accommodation visitors will spend another €2.5 in the local economy.

The case for compensation is inevitable, although the formula for delivering this mitigation may be more difficult to find given the number of individual businesses which benefit from interaction with tourists. 

In the short-term, we have no choice other than to do what we can and see out 2023. 

But unless more radical solutions are found, this unprecedented crisis can only become both worse, and more costly.