Destination Today

The year 2018 was a bumper one for Irish tourism, with a record 11.2 million visitors to the island. To meet the growing demand, dozens of new hotels are being added to the country's stock – at the end of 2018, 21 hotels were under construction across the country (70% more than at the same time in 2017), with at least another 20 to be built by 2020.

More hotels won't necessarily mean lower prices, however, as the government has raised value added tax (VAT) on the hospitality industry back to 13.5% – up from the 9.5% lifeboat thrown in 2011 to help the sector weather the effects of the global financial crisis. Many hoteliers and restaurateurs have responded negatively, arguing that the rise puts pressure on operators' margins already stretched by rising wage and rent costs.

What is almost certain is that the VAT hike will be passed on to the consumer. Many cafes and restaurants have already raised their prices, while hotel and B&B owners will be forced to mitigate what is effectively a 50% increase in their VAT bill by bumping up their room rates even more than the standard rate of year-on-year inflation.

Initially announced in 2012, the long-awaited National Broadband Plan was finally given Cabinet approval in May 2019. It's designed to bring high-speed broadband to over half a million homes, farms and businesses in rural and regional Ireland that have little or no connectivity at all.

The plan has attracted much controversy due to rising costs (the initial €200 million predicted cost ballooned over time to €2.7 billion), rejected proposals (several bidders were rejected while others eventually pulled out) and, most notably, political interference – it was revealed in October 2017 that Minister for Communications Denis Naughten had close dealings with the last remaining bidder, prompting his resignation amid charges of improper conduct.

Following a re-evaluation of the tender process, the decision to proceed has been met with muted enthusiasm. Questions remain over the cost value of the project and its 'gap-funded' model, whereby the State funds the design and build of the network, which will be owned by the preferred bidder (the same consortium involved with Denis Naughten) after the expiration of the 25-year contract.

But rural Ireland will not be connected anytime soon. The contracts alone will take up to six months to finalise, with construction to begin after that. You won't be using local broadband wi-fi to post that shot of the rural farmhouse anytime soon.

Without a working government since January 2017, Northern Ireland remains at a political impasse. The power-sharing agreement between the two largest blocs on either side of the sectarian divide – republican Sinn Féin and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) – was an improbable success for over a decade, but the last two years have seen both sides retreat behind familiar positions of deep mistrust and antipathy. The main fault lines are the Irish language, which Sinn Féin wants recognised as having equal status with English, a concession firmly rejected by the DUP; and the latter's refusal on religious grounds to support the introduction of a marriage equality act that would bring it in line with the rest of the United Kingdom.

Paradoxically the pathway to restoration may have been carved by the tragic death of journalist and LGBT activist Lyra McKee in April 2019, killed during riots in Derry by members of the dissident republican group, the New IRA.

At her funeral, which was attended by party leaders from both sides of the political divide as well as the British and Irish prime ministers, the priest giving the homily received a standing ovation when he demanded to know why it took her death to unite politicians, tapping into the deep frustration felt by most in the province at their leaders' intransigence. The next day both Sinn Féin and the DUP were making all the right noises about negotiations, but at the time of writing no meaningful progress had been made.

The most controversial term in Brexit's political lexicology is the 'backstop', which has been responsible for killing Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement, and one of those wielding the knife has been the DUP.

The backstop is an insurance policy designed to ensure that the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland – the only land border between a post-Brexit Britain and the EU – remains open as per the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, irrespective of the future relationship with the United Kingdom. Whatever the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement, the backstop will be part of it until such time as a solution to the border question can be found.

Unlike the majority of the province's voters, who voted to remain in the EU, the DUP is a committed Brexiteer, but only because it refuses to consider any loosening of the ties that bind Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom. It was its staunch opposition to the backstop that resulted in the British government's inability to win parliamentary approval for the Withdrawal Agreement and, at the time of writing, the delay of Brexit until October 2019.

The uncertainty is compounded by the zero-sum nature of politics in the province, where the DUP brooks no compromise in its efforts to maintain the union, while Sinn Féin refuses to countenance any provision that will weaken the cause of Irish unification.

But as hardliners refuse to budge, the moderate middle ground has been riled by the Brexit muddle. Polls suggest that a growing number of moderate unionists, when offered the hypothetical choice between a 'hard' Brexit (leaving the EU without a trade agreement and the reintroduction of a hard border with the Republic) and a softer Brexit (where the province might remain in the EU's customs union under different terms than the rest of the UK), expressed a preference for the latter, even if it helped accelerate the cause of Irish unification.