In the past six months, Dublin airport has suffered by falls in passenger numbers.

One of Ireland’s leading aircraft carriers, Ryanair have said that figures are down by 1 million passengers for the same period in 2008. And this has lead to nearly 1000 job losses so far.

Stephen McNamara, Ryanair’s spokesperson, has blamed the reduction in tourism on unreasonable ‘tourist tax’, which sees an extra €10 added to any trips made to Ireland, and has called for the abolishment of the tax.

The call comes amid announcements of cost-cutting proposals across the tourism industry, including Ireland’s hire car industry, in an attempt to increase passenger numbers in the next couple of months.

So far, other countries, such as Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Greece have scrapped their ‘tourist tax’ in the hope of attracting more visitors to their shores.