Q316 Mr. Dave Anderson: Mr O'Toole, you mentioned in passing the role of the private sector but one of the things that came back most regularly when we were in the north was that the private sector was not engaged anything like it is in the south. Is there a strategy anywhere within the tourism industry to actually engage the private sector?

Mr O'Toole: If you look at what has happened in terms of investment in Northern Ireland in recent years, what we have seen is a significant investment in Belfast, a reasonably significant investment in Londonderry and, I suppose, more patchy investments - but significant in their own right - around the rest of Northern Ireland. The urban areas are being reasonably well served through investment but it is not necessarily permeating out broader than that. That, I would have to say, contrasts with development in the Republic of Ireland where, in part driven by capital incentives (taxation incentives), there has been an upsurge in the development of hotels and other products around most urban centres within the Republic of Ireland and that has seen the difference. Again, as a more than interested observer over many years, not just the last five in terms of development in Northern Ireland, what we have seen is industry members who have had to invest in a certain way in more difficult times now having greater opportunities. They have been grasped initially in the honey pot areas of the urban centres and it is more slowly occurring outside of that. I think investor confidence is going to be critical to taking it forward.

This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee. Neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.

Promoted by Paul Foy on behalf of Dave Anderson, both of St Cuthbert's Church Hall, Shibdon Road, Blaydon, NE21 5PT