The Irish government’s Central Statistics Office said that the number of visitors to Ireland also fell during the first three months, though by the smaller level of nine percent against the first three months of 2008.
From January to March of this year, according to the CSO, 1.54 million overseas trips taken by Irish citizens were recorded. This was down from 1.76 million for the same quarter last year.
It was the first quarterly decline since 2000.
Continental Europe was bearing the brunt of the fall, according to the CSO.
The nine percent fall in the number of visitors, in round numbers, was a drop of 100,000 from 1.5 million to 1.4 million, The number of visitors arriving in the Republic from North America fell by nine percent during the first quarter, but the decline was caused to a greater degree by a fall in the total of visitors from Britain.
There was a slight rise in the number of visitors from Europe, about two percent, but this not enough to offset the other declines which had resulted in the overall tumble of nine percentage points.
Visitors also spent less time in Ireland during the three month period and hotel occupancy was down by 20 percent, the CSO report stated.