The Irish Hotels Federation (IHF) has strongly criticised proposals to levy a tax on tourists as "preposterous". Mr John Power, the IHF chief executive, was commenting on the plan by Galway County Council to charge a £1 levy on visitors to the Aran Islands to fund a waste-disposal programme.
Mr Power said: "The very idea of milking our tourists will contribute to a reduction in the number of visitors to not only the Aran Islands but to Ireland as a whole . . . Tourists should not be taxed to provide infrastructural services."
Mr Power added that the notion that the tourist was an easy target for tax collection was "disgraceful" and extremely dangerous for the industry. Publicity on this was bound to reach other countries and would portray Ireland as a nation that imposed completely unfair levies and taxes on tourists to supply infrastructural services.
Mr Power told The Irish Times last night that the biggest-selling newspaper for Irish people in Britain, the Irish Post, carried a banner headline in its current issue announcing plans for a tax on visitors to Ireland.
Mr Power called on the Minister for Tourism, Dr McDaid, to admit that his original proposal of a £3 visitor tax was ill-judged.
Opposition spokesmen blamed the Minister for giving the lead to localised tourist levies by floating the idea of a £3 entry tax. The Labour TD, Mr Michael Ferris, said Dr McDaid's "ill-considered and ham-fisted idea" had opened the floodgates for other proposals.
Fine Gael said the various suggestions for raising revenue from visitors had arisen from the Minister's failure to say how tourism should be funded after 1999, when European Union funding is decided.
Meanwhile, Dublin Tourism has challenged the figure of £30 million which Dublin Chamber of Commerce has said was the value of the visit of the Tall Ships. Mr Frank Magee, chief executive of Dublin Tourism, said the true figure was probably closer to £3 million.
"Tourism in Dublin is damaged when individuals promulgate such wild notions and publicise figures such as these," said Mr Magee.
Mr Declan Martin of Dublin Chamber of Commerce said last night it was standing over its figure.