IF a week is a long time in politics, ten years is an eternity. Distance in time, however, should not prevent today’s politicians from re-examining the promises of the past to assess whether they have been kept and if not, why not.

Senator Francis Le Gresley is, therefore, quite right to look back to 2001, when the States agreed that, over five years, £10 million should be injected into a fund to promote tourism. In the event, no more than £2.2 million ever made its way into the fund. Of this, a little over £45,500 remains to assist an industry which is still a major pillar of the economy and which richly deserves the right sort of governmental support.

It is, of course, true that two periods of economic difficulty have characterised the past decade. Money has undoubtedly been in very short supply, so pious hopes of significant investment have been set aside in favour of saving public money.

But even if failure to boost the tourism fund in accordance with the plans of ten years ago can be understood, Senator Le Gresley makes a fair point when he accuses fellow Sates Members of paying regular lip service to the continuing importance of tourism while failing to do very much to help it in concrete terms. Fine words are, alas, no substitute for action.

This is not to say that those in the various sectors of the tourism industry should ever sit back and wait for cash handouts before they try to help themselves. Nevertheless, given the need not only to retain the diversity already present in the economy but to extend it, it is legitimate to offer aid which is likely to produce major spin-off benefits for the Island as a whole.

It would be unrealistic for the Senator or anyone else to expect the balance of the £10 million that was initially promised to appear out of nowhere at a time when government is engaged in a programme of cuts and cost savings. That said, given the collapse of the Lime Grove police station project, £1 million that is no longer needed immediately could be transferred to the tourism fund if a strong enough case for doing so can be made.

Senator Le Gresley, who has suggested this course of action, has common sense and principle to support a move which he now has to establish would be prudent as well as theoretically possible.