Tourism Ireland has welcomed the latest quarterly figures from the Central Statistics Office which show the number of overseas visitors to Ireland rose by 6.9 per cent during the third quarter of this year.

The figures show there were 2,187,000 overseas visitors to Ireland between July and September, compared with 2,045,000 during the same period last year.

Overseas visitors on cross-channel routes grew by 3.7 per cent, while visitors on continental routes increased by 13.5 per cent. But the number of overseas visits to Ireland remains 2.6 per cent below those for the equivalent period in 2000.

According to Tourism Ireland, the North American market continues to show signs of recovery, growing by 6 per cent on the same period last year. Likewise, Great Britain, Ireland's largest market, has shown a year-to-date increase of 3.4 per cent.

Commenting on the figures, Mr Paul O'Toole, chief executive of Tourism Ireland, said: "The overall growth of 4.8 per cent in the first nine months of the year is very welcome news, considering the difficult global, political and economic climate that prevailed at the time. I am particularly pleased to see the strong growth in numbers from mainland Europe and North America."