Óna Máire Walsh

speaker

239 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 24 Jun

Óna Máire Walsh’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 1.

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Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock · Has the Irish building sector got themselves hooked on Government subsidies? · 24 Jun 2026 podcast

I mean, I think the 9% VAT rate for food services is very welcome.

I mentioned earlier the cost of business pressures that all sectors, but particularly the tourism and hospitality sector is facing.

Ireland being the second most expensive country in Europe.

Tourism is a very labour-intensive business.

Margins are very, very tight.

There's a lot of SMEs in the sector.

So I think reducing the applicable VAT rate to food services is very welcome.

In fact, I'd like to see it extended to some other tourism sectors such as visitor attractions, adventure centres, camping sites.

I'm not talking about it coming back for hotel bedrooms, but I think it could certainly be extended to downstream tourism businesses and it would help those businesses grow.

get through what is a challenging time.

Yeah, well, as I say, you know, Fortune Ireland data shows that 29 cent of every euro a tourist spends already goes straight back into the Ministry for Finance's wallet.

So I think that's enough.

And I think we have to be really careful that Ireland is not a cheap destination.

You know, it's a northern European destination in terms of its cost perception, in terms of, you know, the price the consumer pays.

We always have to be value conscious.

And I think adding tax onto an already highly taxed sector, I think, is counterproductive.

We certainly have the discussion with them.

I think a lot more work needs to be done as to if a bed tax.

And remember, you know, we're nearly being premature to a certain extent because the government, central government has to introduce legislation to allow local government to apply a bed tax.

So there's a bit to go in this yet.

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