Every Friday flights to Dublin from British airports carry laddish revellers heading for one of Europe's most popular cities with a single objective, to spend the weekend drinking and carousing.
They can be seen almost everywhere, swamping pubs on Fleet Street, often to the exclusion of indigenous drinkers, and swarming through the streets, with some of the men pausing to relieve themselves. The huge growth in what some call "lager-lout tourism" over the past few years has been one of the unfortunate dividends from the Northern Ireland peace process and from cheap and easy access. However, the spectacle of roaring-drunk English stag-party types on Temple Bar Square in close proximity to well-dressed, but bewildered, Italians spells danger for the quality tourism Bord Failte says it wants in Ireland.
The board's recent survey of the British market contains no reference to lager-lout tourism; the explanation is that "it's not large enough to show up in statistics." It was the collective reluctance of Dublin Tourism, Bord Failte and the Department of Tourism to face up to it that prompted Ms Laura Magahy, managing director of Temple Bar Properties, to commission a strategic review of the sustainability of tourism in Dublin.
A spokesman for Bord Failte said it had only a limited amount of money for research and lagerlout tourism wouldn't be a huge priority. In any case, he asked, what could be done to stop it, given that the airlines were in the business of "putting bums on seats".
Ms Magahy said she was concerned that the unchecked growth in the tourist numbers could have a detrimental impact on Temple Bar. "I would hate to see Dublin becoming a place where people come to soak up beer, rather than the city itself."
The support of the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, and his interest in sustainable tourism had been crucial in getting the study under way. The study is due to be completed by the end of next month. Indecon, which is conducting it, says it has identified a small number of tour operators in Britain catering for the stag market, usually advertising in downmarket magazines.
Bord Failte's spokesman said it did nothing to encourage lager louts to visit Dublin. He ailte spokesman said that although the board was pleased about the easier and cheaper access to Dublin in recent years, it had no control over airlines and ferry companies. However, another Bord Failte official said lager louts were "anathema to the type of tourism we're trying to encourage. Fewer and fewer hotels and hostels will put up with a rabble descending on them every weekend."
Ms Ciara Sugrue, marketing manager of Dublin Tourism, said this type of traffic was not in keeping with the image it was trying to project.