Sinn Féin is proposing giving every adult €200 and every child €100 to kickstart a summer of staycations.
It is highly unlikely that there’ll be any tourists coming into Ireland in the near future.
And so the tourism and hospitality sectors will be relying on all of us splashing the cash at home to make their summer instead.
Sinn Féin’s voucher scheme would replace the Government’s Stay and Save tax rebate scheme brought in last year and which the opposition party had branded “a flop.”
Less than €10million of a budgeted €200million was claimed by holidaymakers, although the repeated lockdowns ruined the chances to get away most of the time.
It’s proposed the new scheme would operate via a smartcard system and would be up and running by the time hotels reopen early next month.
The vouchers could be used for hotels, restaurants, zoos, amenities and many other types of recreation.
Sinn Féin enterprise spokeswoman, Louise O’Reilly, said: “We are launching our stimulus initiative for the tourism and hospitality sector.
“It’s a sector that has remained effectively closed since the start of the pandemic and we want to see people back once it’s safe to do so.
“Once the public health allows it, we want to see people being able to get back out and to start spending money in the tourism and hospitality sector.
“We believe that this stimulus package is essential to kickstart the sector, to get people back out.”
Ms O’Reilly added that they have talked to Minister for Tourism, Catherine Martin, about the new scheme and that she is “open” to discussing the idea.
