The Government is hoping to attract more tourists from India, the UAE and the Asia-Pacific region as part of a new strategic investment covering a range of sectors.
The €4.7 billion capital investment strategy from the Department of Enterprise and Tourism will include support for small businesses, enterprise development and tourism promotion.
Political Correspondent Mícheál Lehane explained the plan and why Minister for Tourism Peter Burke criticised his predecessor, Catherine Martin.
"The criticism seems to focus on the fact that Peter Burke is of the view that it was part of Green [Party] policy not to put political direction into a strategy to attract people from countries like India, the United Arab Emirates and the Asia-Pacific region.
"He says they may not be huge numbers of people, but they would be high-end and would spend a lot when they'd come here.
"So, there are going to be a lot of Tourism Ireland people deployed in those regions across the world now," Mícheál said.
"It’s going to be game on again for trying to attract people from further away locations into Ireland."
Mícheál said that concerns about capacity will see plans to expand the tourist season beyond the summer.
"They’re saying it should run from St Brigid's Day all the way up to Halloween," he said.
"There is a view that you can bring in high-end spenders for a longer period of the year.
"As well as that there is going to be an emphasis by Government - saying there will be announcements in the weeks ahead - on direct flights into regions like the United Arab Emirates, Canada and the US as well."
Hosts Evelyn O’Rourke and Karen Creed also speak with teacher and researcher Eoghan Cleary about concerns around Grok AI and the increase in "nudification" tools.
He said there are "hundreds" of such apps available to young people.
"[The app will] not only let you undress somebody, but it’ll create video footage that looks absolutely real, of the person that you’ve uploaded the image of doing any kind of sexuality explicit act," he said.
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