Óna Máire Walsh

Well, there's still a little bit of misalignment between the CSO data and the industry figures.

So the CSO numbers are actually showing a big bounce this year.

But if you recall last year, they were recording a big drop that we didn't notice.

And this big bounce that they're talking about this year, we're not seeing that either.

So, you know, the CSO may have right-sized their numbers and it's just the comparison metric that's wrong.

If we'd been having this conversation two months ago before the Iran conflict, I think there would have been kind of cautious optimism about the year ahead.

lots of air access into the country, which is so important to Irish tourism, particularly from the key North American market.

The Iran crisis has kind of dented confidence a bit.

It's obviously increased fuel prices, so it's affected airfares.

There is a bit of a recalibration of some of the routes into Ireland.

Have any routes been cancelled?

The Aer Lingus have cut about 2% of their air capacity.

And there's talk of... So is that going from four to three flights a day, let's say, to somewhere?

That sort of thing, kind of a...

A little bit of consolidation.

And I suppose it'll probably be okay for 2026 because a lot of fuel is hedged and stuff.

But what we don't know is what 2027 looks like.

There's also a little bit of evidence that we're getting that consumer confidence overseas in the key source markets has been a bit spooked by the conflict, by cost of living pressures, by inflation, all that sort of stuff.

And travel and tourism is the classic sort of discretionary item.

So if people have less confidence in the economy or in their pay packet, then often, you know, one or a second holiday gets cancelled and Ireland might miss out as a result.