9 December 2009

The Government is to implement a tourism idea proposed in the Action Plan for the Ideas Campaign, the independent citizens’ campaign launched earlier this year.  The idea proposed offering off-peak free travel for tourists as a means of generating overseas revenues.

In his budget speech today, the Minister for Finance said:“ As an imaginative initiative to increase tourism numbers next year, Iarnród Éireann have agreed to participate in a new scheme, to be developed by Fáilte Ireland, aimed at senior citizens visiting Ireland from abroad. This group will be offered vouchers for greatly discounted rail travel throughout Ireland. More information on this initiative will be given by Fáilte Ireland and Iarnród Éireann in the coming weeks when the details have been finalised.”

In July, the Government announced that it planned to immediately implement 17 of the 44 ideas included in the campaign’s Action Plan, in areas such as active citizenship, the knowledge economy, tourism and government finances. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Renewal gave a further commitment  to review other ideas in the plan. The tourism idea was not among the initial 17 ideas which the Government agreed to implement.

The Ideas Campaign, which generated a huge local and international response with almost 5,300 ideas logged on the campaign site, was launched in March and concluded in July.  The campaign was launched and funded by online consultancy AMAS.

Read the original government statement
Download the campaign’s Action Plan

Tags: Budget 2009, Ideas Campaign, News

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 1:21 pm and is filed under Ideas Campaign, News.