677. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media the current number of registered short-term lets (details supplied), by local area, in tabular form. [1962/25]

The growth of the short term letting sector in recent years is a key aspect of the tourism ecosystem but it has brought with it certain challenges, in particular a lack of data on the short term letting market which impedes authorities’ ability to determine which properties are best placed for tourism and which are more appropriate to the longer term housing market.

The proposed Short Term Letting and Tourism (STLT) Bill will provide the statutory basis for the establishment of a register for short term lets in Ireland which will facilitate the production of quality data on short term letting accommodation in each region in the country. However, until that point, it is not possible to provide accurate data on the quantum of such accommodation.

Fáilte Ireland has estimated that there are circa 32,000 short term letting properties currently advertised online as outlined below. This estimate is based on online data-scraping from the four largest online booking platforms operating in Ireland. It is important to note that the data cannot be regarded as definitive and that the short term letting register to be established under the proposed STLT Bill will ultimately help to address this information deficit.