The Government and national tourism agencies were yesterday accused of not doing enough to attract holidaymakers to the six Republic counties nearest the border with Northern Ireland.
Tourism operators along the Border are demanding a special deal for the area.
They insist that resources being pumped by the British government and UK agencies into developing tourism in the six counties of Northern Ireland are several times greater than Dublin-based authorities are putting into Donegal, Sligo, Leitrim, Cavan, Monaghan and Louth.
Over 200 tourism operators in the region heard Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland executives spell out their plan for boosting the numbers of visitors in 2005.
Leaders of the two agencies, which between them promote Irish holidays to home and overseas markets, said they anticipated business nationally to be worth a total of €5.7 billion during the year.
But the chairman of North West Tourism, Mr Sean McEniff, presented an argument for a special deal for the Border counties.
He said tourism in the region had suffered from the conflict in the North in the same way as it had on the other side of the Border. Yet, since the Good Friday Agreement, much more had been done by the UK for the northern counties than had been done in the South for its Border counties.The Government should match a €2.5 million marketing grant from an EU agency for the region, he said.
Meanwhile, the three western regional tourism development agencies have joined forces to put in place a €400,000 budget to attract additional tourists to the west.
Shannon Development's regional tourism development manager, Mr John Leonard, announced yesterday that the agencies have come together to take advantage of additional services into Shannon and other airports in the west.
The regional tourism agencies - the Shannon Region, Ireland West and North West Tourism - along with Shannon Airport, have each contributed €100,000 towards the budget aimed at attracting additional visitors from the UK.
As a result of recently announced air services, including Ryanair's decision to establish a European hub at Shannon Airport, 200 flights from the UK are to land at west of Ireland airports each week from the summer.
Tourism Ireland chief executive Mr Paul O'Toole said that Tourism Ireland would try to match the €400,000 as far as it can.
"We are absolutely delighted to see the three tourism regions coming together, because it is very hard to even get messages about the island of Ireland out there, let alone the different parts," he said.
