A number of Northern Ireland travel agents met yesterday (Monday 20) by zoom with Carla Lockhart, Gregory Campbell and Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, all from the DUP party, for crisis talks on the state of the travel industry here, Damian Murphy from ANITA gave us an update.
“We had a very productive, and I would say encouraging, meeting with members of the DUP party yesterday to update them on the urgent need for financial assistance for the travel sector here. The meeting was organised by Sharon Thompson and indeed she was one of the main speakers along with Sandra Corkin. ”
He continued,
“I have to say they both spoke extremely well with Sharon painting an overall picture of how the industry stands and Sandra illustrating with examples from her own company. Their talks were both factual and passionate and I think they will have helped convey exactly how bad things are for us right now. ”
“Sir Jeffrey replied and promised to firstly speak to both First Minister Paul Givan and Economy Minister Gordon Lyons on our behalf and ask if the travel sector could be brought under the remit of the Economy Department. Assuming that happens he then said he would do what he could to encourage a bid to be made to the Finance Minister Mr Conor Murphy to bring forward a tailored support package.” Said Mr Murphy.
“He did however advise caution in that the Executive budget was under great strain currently and many sectors were asking for support- he did however acknowledge the pain the pandemic had caused the travel sector. I would have to say we left the meeting with a good degree of hope that some sort of support package may be possible and I would again like to thank Sharon and Sandra for their efforts yesterday – I really don’t think they could have put our case over any better”
