SPORT BUSINESS OPINION FEATURES LOCAL NEWS NEWS
16 | the City Voice
Positive outlook for tourism trade in Limerick
Sean Lally
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Siobhan O’Connor
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closed in the city. While Gardaí continue to investigate cases of prostitution and human trafficking, concern has been expressed for the human rights of the women involved. Research indicates that women are reluctant to identify abusers within the prostitution industry for fear of incriminating themselves and facing prosecution. As so few women come forward to reveal the abuses which occur in prostitution it can be extremely difficult to identify those who have been trafficked. In recent years the level of violence within prostitution has increased enormously. This also seems to play out in the reality when one considers the personal testimonies of women in sex work and the levels of violence carried out against them and how it has increased over the years. The number of prostitution related offences recorded in Limerick in the first quarter of this year represented an increase of more than 500 percent on last year. Individuals were charged with soliciting, running a brothel and sexual exploitation of a child amongst other offences. On one website there were 56 women available for sex in the city. Limerick’s prostitution is thought to be linked to a wider European ring. It is thought to be linked to organised crime. This is what the demand is creating.
E have finally turned the corner with tourism in Limerick this year. I believe this is due to the new Government who put in place a number of pro tourism policies including the reduction of VAT from 13.5 percent to nine percent. This made the hospitality industry so much more competitive, helped to attract additional international travellers and for the first time in five years, tourism into Ireland experienced a growth of 10 percent. The new tourist visa waiver scheme, which will make it easy for tourists from India, China and Russia to visit Ireland once they have a visa for the UK, will help us secure a share of the fastest growing outbound tourism market in the world. It will also provide a huge opportunity to capture additional tourists during the Olympics in London next year. The merging of the two councils will lead to more joined up thinking as the problems of having two separate councils are evidenced by the doughnut developments in Limerick, at the expense of the city centre. The purchase of the Opera site by Limerick City Council is great news and a master plan for this 3.5 acre site needs to be fast-tracked and developed as quickly as possible. It will get the much needed investment back into our city centre and hopefully there will not be a proposal to develop another hotel on this site! One of the biggest successes over the last year came on the back of securing the title of European City of Sport. It is crucial that we build on the success of this year to secure Limerick’s reputation as the sports capital of Ireland. Cork may have its Jazz Festival and Galway its races but sport is Limerick’s festival and we need to support it in every way that we can. One of the biggest challenges we face in Limerick is our image. It has been built up as a result of years of negative publicity but I believe we are making headway in turning people’s attitudes by securing high profile events. We must put our best foot forward and make sure when people come to Limerick they know what is going on, they get the best possible experience of the city and spread the good word of what we have, as the best form of advertising is word of mouth. There are 13 hotels working together with an external sales consultant on a sales and marketing and PR plan for the group, as if we were one hotel. We will pool our resources to ensure that we have maximum effect in attracting tourists to Limerick. This year we carried a national advertising campaign for July and August which led to a 14 percent increase in bedroom occupancy for the summer months. This meant there were more people shopping in Limerick, using our bars and restaurants and when the city is busy everyone gets a spin off. The glass is certainly half full when it comes to Limerick and tourism.
-Dr Siobhan O’Connor is Advocacy and Campaigns Officer with Doras Luimni
-Sean Lally is General Manager of the Limerick Strand Hotel
It’s time to make buying sex illegal
UMAN trafficking is modern day slavery and cannot be stopped until there is a national focus on demand since demand lies at the core of human trafficking. Almost 80 percent of all human trafficking is for the illegal sex industry so it can be said that it is the demand in Ireland to purchase sex that encourages sex traffickers to subject their victims to Irish brothels. The work of the anti-human trafficking unit of An Garda Síochana is the perfect tool to spread awareness and education amongst those that may not realise the consequences of their actions when they purchase sex from brothels. A person seeking the services of a brothel may think they have entered into a business contract between two consenting adults. However it could be the subjugation and humiliation of a woman or child who is there against her will under duress and threat of violence to herself or harm to her family. This is a topic we can all engage with, be aware of and tackle as a society. There is no evidence that criminalising will eradicate this heinous situation but the evidence from Sweden shows that if the purchase of sex is criminalised in conjunction with educational and awareness campaigns the number trafficked into the State will fall dramatically. Victims of trafficking from within the European Economic Area (EEA) are forced to
rely on the already over stretched Homelessness and Community Welfare services. Victims of trafficking from outside the EEA, if they escape or are rescued, are housed in Direct Provision Centres. Apart from the inadequacy of this type of accommodation, they can be at risk because they are very visible in the area in which they are situated.
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edia reports from the past show that women and young girls in Direct Provision Centres were being solicited for prostitution. Also traffickers can easily look in these very visible centres for their own victims that may have escaped or for susceptible new victims. The Children’s Rights Alliance has highlighted evidence of children who were targeted in this way. Traffickers feed a demand in Irish society. Every time a woman, man or child is coerced into a sexual act it is a violation. Every time a person is expected to work in bad conditions, for a lower than the minimum wage rate of pay or against their will, it is exploitation. Yet all of this happens in Ireland. The reason it can continue to happen is that there is a demand. Service users are perpetuating the problem because traffickers are responding to the demand: the demand for available sex and the demand for cheap labour. Recent media reports indicate that the sex trade in Limerick is flourishing. In the first three months of this year 15 brothels were