It is my pleasure to welcome everyone this afternoon to our public meeting. We have received apologies from Deputies James O'Connor, George Lawlor and Brian Brennan.

Before we proceed, I have some housekeeping matters to go through. I wish to explain to the witnesses some limitations of parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references they make to other persons in their evidence. Witnesses within the parliamentary precincts are protected only by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to the committee. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege, and it is my duty as Chair to ensure this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I advise members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate when they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, a member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask members partaking via Microsoft Teams to confirm, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, that they are on the Leinster House campus.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I suggest that we invite witnesses to speak for around five to ten minutes and then allow each member around seven minutes in which to ask questions or make comments. We may have a second round of questions if time permits. Members will be called in the order in which they appear on the speaking rota, which has been circulated. Is that agreed? Agreed.

I propose that we publish the opening statements and submissions provided by the witnesses on the committee's website. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Let us proceed with the pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism, STLT, Bill. The Minister referred the revised general scheme of the Bill to the committee in accordance with Standing Orders. The committee has met a number of stakeholders on this topic, including officials from the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, officials from Fáilte Ireland, representatives of the Irish Host Community and representatives from Threshold. I am delighted to welcome additional witnesses today. From the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, we have Mr. Paul Hogan, assistant secretary, planning division; Mr. David Kelly, assistant secretary, homelessness, rental and social inclusion division; and Mr. Danny O'Sullivan, principal officer, planning division. We are also joined by guests from the County and City Management Association, CCMA, and local authorities. From Dublin City Council, we are joined by Mr. Anthony Flynn, assistant chief executive, and Mr. John Downey, planning enforcement manager. From Clare County Council, we have Ms Siobhan McNulty, director of services. From Cork County Council, we have Ms Eileen Coleman, director of services, and from Kerry County Council we are joined by Mr. James Nolan, director of services. They are all very welcome. We appreciate their attendance today at this meeting of the joint Oireachtas committee.

I now invite Mr. Paul Hogan, from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to make his opening statement.

I thank the members of the committee for the invitation to today's meeting. We have done the introductions, so I will not repeat them. We have been invited here today to discuss the general scheme of the STLT Bill, the national planning statement, NPS, on short-term letting, and other related matters. As members will be aware from previous sessions of the pre-legislative scrutiny of the STLT Bill, the EU short-term rental regulation, STRR, was adopted by the EU on 11 April 2024 and will come into force in Ireland from 20 May 2026. The STLT Bill has been drafted in full alignment with the STRR.

To complement the introduction of the STLT Bill, and as referenced in Ireland's new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030, we are developing an NPS for the short-term letting sector. The NPS will ensure there is a clear overall policy approach, at both national and local authority levels, to determining planning applications for short-term lets. The current planning regulations relating to short-term letting, which I will discuss shortly, have been in place since 2019 and have not been subject to the engagement of the sector to the extent envisaged when they were commenced. The NPS will allow for consistency in decision-making throughout all local authorities areas, including in respect of the general preclusion of permission for short-term lettings in larger towns and cities and will give further clarity to short-term letting operators.

On 1 July 2019, planning legislative reforms to regulate the short-term letting sector came into effect. The aim of the legislation was to assist in returning residential accommodation being used for short-term letting purposes in designated rent pressure zones, RPZs, to the long-term rental market, thereby increasing long-term rental supply. Among other measures, the 2019 regulations provided that where a person owns a property in a RPZ that is not their principal private residence and intends to let it for short-term letting purposes, they are required to apply for change-of-use planning permission unless the property already has specific planning permission to be used for tourism or short-term letting purposes. With the nationwide extension of RPZs in June 2025, the legislative requirement to gain planning permission for short-term letting use has effectively been extended nationwide.

On enforcement, there are significant operational issues with regulating short-term letting through the current system. The greatest challenge faced in the enforcement of planning rules for short-term lets is identifying where properties are located, because often the address is not visible until a person books and pays for the property. This restricts the proactive ability of local authorities to identify properties, as well as making it difficult for local residents to report properties.

Local authorities are responsible for the implementation and enforcement of the short-term letting planning arrangements. Local authorities have provided information to the Department in relation to planning applications and enforcement actions since 1 July 2019, when the regulations came into effect, up to and including November 2024. In this time, the local authorities have reported that there have been 426 planning applications received nationally for a change of use to short-term letting. Based on Fáilte Ireland data, this equates to approximately 1.3% of all short-term-let properties in Ireland as of May 2025. To date, 186 planning permissions have been granted, which equates to a 43.6% approval rate.

Local authorities have further reported difficulties in establishing and proving ownership of properties engaging in the practice, making it difficult to serve a warning notice under the planning Act, while acquiring proof to a sufficient legal standard that properties are being used for short-term letting has also proven very difficult.

The identification of properties and the verification of details for enforcement purposes will be greatly improved under the Bill, as short-term letting platforms will be required to provide particular sets of data and report monthly to Fáilte Ireland. This information will be shared and will enable local authorities and competent authorities, which will be managing the registers, to have information about short-term letting, including where the properties are located.

I will move on to the proposed policy and regulations from a policy perspective. On 15 April 2025, the Government approved a new policy, which is to generally preclude new planning permissions for short-term lets in cities and towns with a census population in excess of 10,000 persons at the most recent census of population. Action 7.16 of Delivering Homes, Building Communities further states that the Government will introduce increased regulation of the short-term letting sector by introducing a short-term letting and tourism Bill and a national planning statement that will provide guidance for local authorities when deciding on planning applications for short-term lets. We are working to give effect to the Government decision of April 2025. This involves a review of the current Planning Acts with a view to removing references to rent pressure zones in respect of short-term lets. It is expected that these amendments will be in place in the first half of the new year.

In tandem with these legislative changes, and as previously mentioned, we are currently developing a national planning statement, NPS, under section 25 of the Planning and Development Act 2024 for short-term letting activity. The national planning statement will ensure that there is a clear overall policy approach, both at national level and local authority level, to determining planning applications for short-term lets, which will complement and support the introduction of the Bill. The NPS will consider a variety of factors, such as existing planning legislation, the location and potential benefits of the proposed short-term let and the overarching aim to balance housing need with the potential impact on tourism and economic development.

We have met various stakeholders during the course of this year, including booking platforms, industry representatives and local authorities, and will continue to do so during the development of the NPS for the short-term letting sector. We have also established a working group consisting of members from my Department, the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment and the County and City Management Association in advance of finalising the NPS on short-term letting. The group will provide a forum for input into proposed policy formulation and guidance documentation development by the Department.

In conclusion, I again thank the Chair and members of the committee for giving us the time to speak today. As previously outlined to the committee, the primary objective of these policy reforms is to influence the bringing back of a proportion of the houses and apartments that are being used for short-term letting purposes to the traditional long-term rental market, thereby helping to ease the accommodation shortage pressures currently being experienced in this area. It should be noted that in advance of the publication of the NPS, local authorities can continue to make decisions on applications for change of use in respect of short-term letting properties. The decision of the local authority will be informed by local policy contained in the city and county development plans and local area plans, where applicable. On issuance of the national planning statement on short-term letting, the decision-making of local authorities in respect of material change of use applications for short-term letting properties will be informed by the policy contained within the NPS. This will allow for consistency throughout all local authority areas, including in respect of the general preclusion of permission for short-term lettings in large towns and cities.

On behalf of the County and City Management Association economic development committee, I thank the Chair for the opportunity to join the committee today to discuss the general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism Bill 2025. With the approval of the Cathaoirleach, I propose to make an opening statement on behalf of the CCMA and Dublin City Council, and my colleagues will then make statements on behalf of their own counties.

Is that agreed? Agreed.

The general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism Bill 2025 aims to regulate short-term lettings in Ireland, establish a national register and ensure compliance with EU regulations. The legislative provisions provide for full compliance with the EU short-term rental regulations from 20 May 2026. Under the Bill, the requirements are as follows: all properties offered for short-term lets up to 21 nights must register with Fáilte Ireland; hosts will receive a unique registration number, which must be displayed on all listings; online platforms must verify and display this number; and non-compliance can lead to fines of up to 2% of annual turnover for platforms.

With regard to the planning restrictions, new planning rules will effectively ban planning permission for commercial short-term lets in towns and cities with populations over 10,000. In these areas, homeowners can still rent their primary residence for up to 90 days per year without planning permission. Regarding EU alignment, these changes implement the EU short-term rental regulation, which focuses on data collection and transparency. As for enforcement, Fáilte Ireland will issue fixed payment notices and pursue District Court proceedings for non-compliance. Head 12(1)(b) and head 41 of the legislation state that the local authority is the competent authority, within the meaning of Article 3(11) of the short-term accommodation regulation, with responsibility for ensuring compliance with applicable rules concerning access to, and provision of, short-term accommodation rental services located within its area of responsibility.

Existing planning permission requirements mean that should a person rent out their entire home - the principal private residence - for more than 90 days per year, planning permission is required for a change of use. Should a person rent out a second property for short-term lets, that is, less than 14 days per stay, planning permission is required in all cases. These rules apply nationwide because rent pressure zones were extended to all areas until 28 February 2026. Home-sharing is generally exempt from planning permission.

In relation to the national planning statement on short-term letting, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is currently carrying out a review of the Planning Acts and developing guidance for local authorities on short-term letting by way of a national planning statement. The objective of the national planning statement is to establish a clear and concise approach to determining planning applications for short-term lets, particularly in the context of the national policy to generally restrict new permissions for short-term lets in specific cities and towns. Observations received from the local authority sector through the CCMA planning and land use and economic development committees emphasise the need for a balanced, evidence-based approach to short-term letting regulation that considers the balance between housing supply and tourism viability. The key recommendations include: strong enforcement powers and a national short-term let registration system; clear policy alignment with urban and rural realities, avoiding arbitrary thresholds; and detailed guidance on criteria for exceptions to ensure consistency and transparency.

The issue of short-term lets is complex and multifaceted. In drafting the national planning statement, it is essential to prioritise stakeholder engagement, flexibility in planning consent and consideration of local tourism and economic drivers. A well-defined and flexible national planning statement will support sustainable housing provision while safeguarding the economic benefits of tourism.

I wish to outline the key considerations and concerns for local authorities. The effective regulation of short-term lets requires robust planning and planning enforcement mechanisms. Currently, local authorities face challenges in verifying full-time use of properties as short-term lets. The proposed legislation will allow Fáilte Ireland to share data with the local authorities, including data from tourism platform providers. While tourism remains a crucial economic driver, this must be balanced against the provision of permanent homes in response to the ongoing housing crisis. Evidence-based policies tailored to individual towns would be beneficial and would get more buy-in locally. Clarity is also needed on the definition and scope of planning consent, including whether determinations rest solely with the planning authorities or extend to appeal processes.

With regard to resources, the introduction of any new statutory provisions in addressing this will have significant resource implications for the planning department of a local authority. This will need to be considered prior to the finalisation of the national planning statement. An influx of planning applications or enforcement cases, together with the significant increase in engagements and communications with the planning department on this matter, will require additional technical and administrative resources. However, the precise resource requirement cannot be determined until the roadmap is determined.

As for the current challenges of planning enforcement, resource constraints within the local authority planning section are such that, in most instances, planning enforcement is responsive. Generally, there is little activity in pursuit of compliance with planning regulations for short-term lets.

This is coupled with such challenges as identifying properties on platforms where apartments, that is, the specific addresses, are not provided. The advertisements and pictures that are being put on the platforms often do not relate to the specific property, or are often indicative only. When properties are specifically identified, access to these, particularly apartments, can be very problematic. Inspections are required to be carried out with the consent of the owner or occupier. Therefore, where scheduled inspections are arranged, sometimes a scene is set to stage the property concerned to make it look like it is in long-term occupancy by someone. Even when we are successful in stopping the short-term letting of a property for a period, it is very easy for it to recommence without the local authority's knowledge.

Turning to the tourism economy, global performance in relation to international tourism nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2024, achieving 99% of the volumes recorded in 2019. Strong demand in Europe and robust performance from key source markets have primarily driven this growth. Increased air connectivity and the facilitation of visa processes have supported the rebound, leading to 1.4 billion international tourists travelling in 2024. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, UNWTO, nearly two thirds of destinations have reported a complete recovery. Despite the ongoing economic and geopolitical challenges, these statistics indicate a strong global desire to travel. Forecasts for 2025 anticipate continued growth of between 3% and 5%, particularly as demand in Asia and the Pacific begins to rebound.

In the context of Ireland's performance, tourism is Ireland’s largest indigenous industry, influencing multiple sectors across the economy. Beyond direct employment and economic activity, tourism has a significant multiplier effect. It supports agriculture, transport, food and beverage, as well as retail, and contributes to regional development by stimulating infrastructure investment, promoting sustainability and conserving cultural and natural heritage. As regards the national tourism economy, Ireland welcomed 6.6 million overseas visitors in 2024, resulting in €6 billion of derived revenue. In addition, the total value of domestic overnight trips by residents in Ireland was estimated at €3.6 billion in 2024.

Dublin City Council has relevant polices, objectives and development standards relating to short-term letting, which are contained in its current city development plan for 2022-2028. The plan states "There is a general presumption against the provision of dedicated short term tourist rental accommodation in the city due to the impact on the availability of housing stock." Notwithstanding this general presumption against short-term lets contained in the city development plan, in recognition of the need to provide an adequate mix of tourism accommodation in the city, Dublin City Council considers planning applications where site conditions do not lend themselves to residential accommodation and where relevant zoning objectives align.

Turning to enforcement, since the short-term letting regulations came into force in July 2019, the short-term letting enforcement unit in the city council has been carrying out enforcement investigations reactively and proactively to ensure the regulations are implemented. From 2019 to date, we have resolved over 2,100 cases. However, there remains almost 400 open cases in our short-term letting enforcement unit files. Each investigation is very time consuming and resource intensive under the current planning enforcement short-term letting provisions.

I covered challenges earlier in my statement. Despite having robust policies and procedures in place to address the unregulated use of buildings in the city which may otherwise be suitable for permanent residential use, the difficulties in enforcement outlined in the statement highlight the complexity of these issues in Dublin city.

On a path forward, the proposed registration process to be hosted by Fáilte Ireland is very welcome. However, as already stated, this needs to be underpinned by a robust enforcement framework. The nature of planning consent required needs clarity, and any exemptions from compliance should be developed in consultation with planning authorities. Timing of any proposed planning deadlines for new consent exemptions that are being considered should be discussed with planning authorities. The national planning statement, which will govern the regulation of short-term letting from a planning perspective, should be cognisant of unintended consequences of setting thresholds that may affect the ability of the city council to offer an appropriate and monitored level of this type of tourism accommodation in the city.

Hotel occupancy in Dublin is consistently at a level of 80% to 90%, effectively meaning full capacity. Demand for tourist accommodation remains strong while the lack of supply remains an issue. In 2024, approximately 9% of all tourist beds in Dublin were used to provide accommodation for humanitarian purposes under Government contracts. This has resulted in a loss of one- and two-star hotel and hostel accommodation, particularly in the core city centre area. This has reduced available accommodation in Dublin city for budget travellers. It is important that Dublin city, as the capital city, provide an adequate tourist accommodation offering for a cross-section of all visitors to the State, including budget accommodation.

Tourism is a key economic driver for Dublin, attracting 4.1 million overseas visitors and 3 million domestic visitors, including Northern Ireland, in 2024. It generated approximately €2.4 billion from international visitors and €670 million from domestic tourism, with visitors spending an average of 3.5 nights in the city. As Ireland’s largest indigenous industry, tourism employs almost 258,000 people nationwide, including 60,000 in Dublin’s food and accommodation sector, and supports thousands more jobs in cultural attractions, transport and retail. Hotels dominate the Dublin accommodation market, accounting for 64% of all bed nights in 2024, followed by guesthouses and bed and breakfasts, hostels and rented properties.

According to Fáilte Ireland, as of the first quarter of 2025, there was an estimated total of 86,250 bed spaces in Dublin. This was made up of almost 65,000 bed spaces in hotels and guesthouses and 22,950 short-term lets. This makes short-term lets the second largest accommodation type on offer, accounting for approximately a quarter of all bed spaces. However, a Fáilte Ireland caveat notes the difficulty in monitoring the short-term letting market accurately.

We are running short on time.

: I will finish now.

Thank you.

I thank the Chair and members. I will hand over to Ms Coleman, director of services in Cork County Council.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I also appreciate the statements provided by all the witnesses. With the agreement of members, Cork County Council will make a statement now, followed by Kerry and Clare councils.

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach. I will not be as long as Mr. Flynn.

The pressure on long-term housing in many parts of the country is well understood and any national regulatory approach must support the broader housing objectives being pursued by the Government. For a county as large and diverse as Cork, a single uniform approach to short-term lets would be challenging. Many urban and rural areas are under housing pressure and many remote, rural, island and coastal communities are heavily reliant on tourism. Tourism plays a significant role in the economic life of many towns, villages and coastal communities across Cork. Consequently, short-term letting accommodation can provide essential bed stock at a variety of price points for the different market segments, supporting sustainable tourism, particularly in rural areas.

In 2024, Cork welcomed nearly 2.8 million tourists, generating approximately €1.15 billion in revenue and almost 10 million bed nights. Approximately 981,000 of these visitors were from overseas markets, with the remaining 1.8 million coming from the domestic market. The associated spend for overseas visitors is €790 per capita and for domestic visitors €206 per capita. The source for that data is Fáilte Ireland.

According to the overview of the national planning statement on short-term letting from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the primary objective of the legislation and planning is to bring back a significant number of houses and apartments into the long-term rental market in towns with populations greater than 10,000. A secondary objective is to support tourism in rural areas and ensure building stock, including vacant and derelict units, is utilised for long- and short-term rental. Until the local authority has the opportunity to see the NPS or a draft of it, Cork County Council cannot fully comment on the implications for the local authority from a planning perspective. However, we agree with the CCMA response that detailed guidance on criteria for exceptions to ensure consistency and transparency would be required.

We welcome the establishment of a register for short-term letting accommodation, which will provide up-to-date and accurate information about the sector to inform policy formation.

We also welcome the regulation of the short-term letting sector to ensure a consistent standard of accommodation for the tourism sector that will protect and enhance the reputation of Ireland as a welcoming visitor destination.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to address it. I am the director of service for Clare County Council. Clare County Council supports a balanced national framework that safeguards housing supply while protecting sustainable tourism capacity in rural and coastal communities. The principles we support around this are robust enforcement and data transparency, including the national short-term letting register, annual renewals and a restriction on advertising unregistered properties. We want calibrated planning controls with defined exceptions, such as exceptions for student accommodation during the off-term and constrained sites.

In respect of tourism capacity and protection for rural and coastal communities, we wish to avoid the unintended loss of visitor bed stock in high-tourism towns. We also seek realistic timelines and transitions to align the registration and planning requirements and avoid administrative bottlenecks.

The evidence base for County Clare is that the housing stock stood at just over 57,665 dwellings in 2022, of which second homes amounted to 10.2% or 5,910 homes. There are two urban sites in County Clare with a population greater than 10,000, namely, Ennis and Shannon. With regard to the short-term letting footprint in Clare, based on statistics from Airbnb and our internal research, we equate or establish that there are about 1,660 Airbnb listings, 65% of which are entire homes. Generally, there are hot spots in north and west Clare. We have tourism bed constraints due to the fact that IPAS contracts have significantly reduced hotel capacity, particularly in the three-, two- and one-star sector, making short-term rentals vital for visitor accommodation across the county.

We have data from the Irish Self-Catering Federation that establishes that short-term lets in Clare generated €4.8 million across a typical 32-week tourism season. A report from Oxford Economics found that Airbnb lettings brought €25 million into the Clare economy in 2022, accounting for 67% of Airbnb income in the mid-west region. The visitor spending footprint is estimated to be in the region of €30 million and it supports 180 jobs in the county.

Clare County Council welcomes the short-term letting and tourism Bill and the national planning statement as essential steps to balance Ireland’s housing need with the vitality of our tourism communities. In Clare, short-term lets are concentrated in coastal settlements with limited hotel capacity. Second homes substantially outweigh short-term lets and IPAS-contracted beds have tightened visitor accommodation. In principle, a national short-term letting register is supported but the implications on resources for the local authority sector must be considered and addressed.

With regard to planning, we recommend a sectoral-led designation of housing pressure areas, guided by clear national criteria and ministerial oversight, which may include the single population threshold of 10,000, that is, urban centres. This respects the different realities of urban centres and rural tourism towns and villages and ensures robust controls for housing where pressure is acute without undermining the bed stock needed to sustain local economies. To avoid unintended consequences, we ask that exceptions are defined and a realistic transition period is provided so that existing operators can seek planning permission without a cliff edge. We urge support for work force housing solutions in tourism towns. With these refinements, the Bill and the national planning statement can deliver meaningful improvements in housing availability while sustaining the tourism that underpins livelihoods across County Clare.

Kerry County Council has relevant plans, policies and objectives on short-term letting in our current county development plan that are broadly in line with the proposed national planning statement. I will not repeat the full objectives as they are already set out but they surround the same principle that a lot of us have, that is, that short-term lettings should not be provided where there is a need for established housing.

In respect of development management, since we have brought in our county development plan there have been limited planning applications for short-term letting since 2022. A total of 37 applications have been received to date, of which 16 have been granted, 15 refused, five deemed invalid and one currently ongoing. Our short-term letting regulations came into effect in July 2019 and we have been proactive in the areas of enforcement and investigation to ensure regulations are implemented. That work would be greatly assisted by the development of a national registry.

Tourism and hospitality are important to Kerry’s economy. They support a wide range of employment and enterprise across multiple sectors. Approximately 5,347 full-time and part-time jobs are generated by the accommodation sector, with an additional 4,254 employed in food- and beverage-related services. Furthermore, tourism supports an additional 8,000 jobs across various other sectors, including retail, arts, entertainment, recreation and transportation. In 2023, Kerry welcomed nearly 2 million tourists, generating approximately €762 million in revenue and almost 8 million bed nights. Approximately 630,000 of these visitors are from overseas, with the remaining 1.3 million from the domestic market. The associated spend is about €330 million and €430 million respectively.

In the short-term letting market, according to Fáilte Ireland, as of quarter 1 2025, there are an estimated 38,650 bed spaces in Kerry. These are made up of 22,850 bed spaces that are on the national quality assurance framework and 19,750 bed spaces in the form of short-term lets. This makes short-term lets the second most prominent accommodation type in our county, accounting for approximately 50% of all bed spaces. As of September 2025, Airbnb data show that there are almost 3,200 listings for Kerry on its website. Approximately 75%, or 2,350, of those listings are for entire homes. The remaining listings, which are listed as “other”, are primarily lettings of a room within a dwelling or ancillary to the dwelling. There are 800 of these listings in Tralee and Killarney, which are the two towns in the county that have a population in excess of 10,000.

Kerry County Council welcomes the provision of the short-term letting and tourism Bill and is supportive of the Government’s policy to bring more properties back to the long-term rental market. A national registry with an associated requirement for compliance with planning and building control requirements will ensure that all tourism accommodation is of an appropriate standard, thus enhancing the reputation of Ireland as a tourism destination internationally.

As I set out, tourism and short-term letting accommodation play a key role in the economy of Kerry. It is, therefore, essential that any national planning statement, while supporting housing provision, also safeguards the economic benefit of tourism and the short-term letting sector, as it also provides accommodation for other economic sectors within the county. The national planning statement should focus on specific housing needs within the urban and rural areas distinct to the specific threshold. The statement should have an evidence-based approach to housing need that analyses the associated economic activity within the area. It is also critical that an appropriate transitional period is allowed for within the policy to allow existing providers to make appropriate applications and decisions to issue.

I will now move to questions from committee members. I will start with Deputy Gogarty. Each member will have seven minutes. We will certainly have a second round. The Dáil and Seanad are both sitting so there will be an amount of movement in and out. I apologise for that disruption. Obviously, members will be following along as well.

We will try to speed things up as much as we can. I ask for a yes-no answer from the CCMA representatives. Have they been given any indication as to how the areas that will be required to apply for planning for short-term lets will be mapped?

I am representing the economic committee. Therefore, I am not involved in the planning or housing committee, so I cannot give the Deputy a yes-no answer. I can come back with a note on that.

Grand.

Mr. Paul Hogan may-----

If I can-----

No. I wish to continue. I will go to the Department now.

On that question, the Central Statistics Office, CSO, maps settlements. A settlement of 10,000 or more is mapped by the CSO.

We are aware of that but Fáilte Ireland does not know how the delineation will be. For example, let us take a town such as, say, Kenmare - I am just talking off the top of my head – that meets the population requirement. Although areas 10 km outside of Kenmare are rural, they could still be in Kenmare municipal district. In that context, a lot of the people in rural areas were suggesting that if they are going to have exceptions because they are outside of urban areas, they need to be clearly marked.

Perhaps municipal districts is not the best way to do it - small area maps might be more suitable. Has that been considered? Will it be part of the final national planning statement?

We expect that to be articulated in each county development plan, tied to the settlement as opposed to the municipal district - a defined area that would be smaller.

That means each local authority would have to update its development plan.

Significant new planning policy does have to be incorporated into the planning system. The principal means to do that is through the county development plan.

County development plans have happened every six years up to now and will subsequently be every ten years. If there has to be an amendment, there is a consultation process and toing and froing, etc. How will this square with the May deadline to register with Fáilte Ireland and people being able to say they are planning compliant, when they do not even know if they have to apply to be planning compliant?

As things stand, it is a necessity to apply for planning permission if you want to engage in short-term letting if it is not your principal private residence. That has been in place since 2019 and it has been nationwide since the middle of this year. We will have transitional provisions. We are not going to have a drop-dead, cliff-face deadline. We will have to reflect the realities of-----

The Department might not have drop-dead, cliff-face deadline but Fáilte Ireland might if it is to meet EU requirements. In that context, I see the legislation that came in to designate the whole country as a rent pressure zone as a sticking plaster just to tide us over until we have the proper legislation. Obviously, there is a serious issue in our cities where people are renting out properties that should be used for housing but then there are tourism towns like Killarney that are over the 10,000 criterion and have a history of providing accommodation. Then, there are rural areas. I have stayed in several places where there is a house next to a farm. They used to live in the house and still have relatives coming back at Christmas or Easter. They are never going to sell it or rent it out to a third party, so they let it out. One would assume that sort of accommodation would be exempt if they are a good distance away from a major town but as of now, they would have to apply for planning permission when in a couple of months' time they might not have to. No one is applying because they do not know what the situation is. There is huge uncertainty and stress being caused because people are being given this deadline of next May to register with Fáilte Ireland but they do not have the planning tools to say okay, I live outside this area, I do not even have to think about it or yes, I do have to think about it. If they do have to think about it but it is short-term letting of a certain type, then it is a different type of planning permission. As it stands, it looks like they will have to provide all the details, do a full planning period, appealable to An Coimisiún Pleanála, etc., which will cost them a lot of money. Is there any way of circumventing that for pure short-term lets? Ultimately, we are trying to stop scammers in city areas and free up housing but we are not trying to penalise people who have been providing a tourism offering who are small family operators.

The framework we intend to provide will allow for local discretion but there still has to be a process. We are considering a simplified regulatory requirement in terms of the application process given that in many instances it is simply a change of use of an existing building in administrative terms but the building does not change. The usual requirement for different sets of drawings to reflect the current and proposed would be less relevant, for example.

On that point, is there a timeline for clarity on that? One real issue for people who have engaged with elected representatives is they do not want to employ an architect to do up drawings and spend a lot of money on something that is just a kind of extension. I can understand where people have a commercial operation with ten sublet units in a campus-type situation but where someone has a house adjacent to a farm or it is someone's holiday home which is occasionally let out to stop it going mouldy, there are different types of circumstances and less onerous requirements. When will we know when such less onerous requirements will be outlined?

We have almost completed the draft of the national planning statement. I will ask Mr. O'Sullivan to comment.

When the Government made the decision about the 10,000 rule in April, it was critically important at that time to engage with stakeholders. We have engaged with the booking platforms, the Irish Self-Catering Federation and many of the people who were before this committee in the past couple of weeks. We have also engaged with the CCMA. Now that we have all that information together, the balanced view, we are at an advanced stage of the national planning statement. We should have something in the coming weeks.

Will there be a draft before Christmas?

Not before Christmas, no. People can still apply for planning permission. There is no diktat or significant restriction. It is each case on its merits subject to local considerations. There will be local discretion continuing even after we introduce the national planning strategy.

Maybe in January.

It is subject to finalisation and the Minister, etc. We would expect - I will not commit to that; I am not in a position to but certainly early next year in the first quarter.

To clarify, the requirement for planning will continue. This decision means-----

Including drawings?

The requirement for planning permission-----

-----and architects, putting in fees and paying for services and stuff like that?

Not in all instances but the 10,000 that has been agreed will give people a view of the outcome of what process will be. The requirement to engage with the process will still be there. They will still require planning. That has been the case since 2019. To date, at a national level there is about a 43% approval rate for short-term letting applications in the country right now. Under this new system, it will be more restrictive to get that planning. That is the key difference.

Following on from Deputy Gogarty, a lot of people have been contacting us about the rural side of things, for example, people who converted farmhouses or older buildings on which they have done an amazing job. I am from the activities sector. We have a business in indoor tourism. It is really difficult to get accommodation for people to stay. I have a worry about it. On Kerry County Council and its county development plan, it was stated one could consider the change of use of derelict vacant buildings to short-term letting where such buildings are not suitable for long-term residential accommodation and will not have a negative impact on the long-term rental market or the residential amenity of the area. It is those people who seem to be sitting and waiting to see what will come out in the national planning framework. I am glad to hear the Department say there will be local consideration. There are a lot of properties in Meath that are converted old farmhouses or stables which may not have planning permission. The owners are worried about their businesses going forward. I am anxious to know when the national planning framework will be out and if there will be something for those properties. When I do ask, I keep being told planning permission is planning permission - you need to do it. I am worried about the fees as well and what they will have to do. I know it is the law and they should have had this done but we are in this position now. How do we help accommodate those people?

Is there any idea in each of the areas as to how many short-term lets operate without planning permission? With the opening statement, it seems there will be a cliff edge. I hope there will not be but it seems there will. At the moment, I think Mr. Flynn said the CCMA is looking up Airbnb and booking.com, etc. and some of the pictures are not right and they do not represent that you might find. That seems like a lot of work at the moment. If a number is going to be assigned by Fáilte Ireland for places to be truthfully advertising what they have, that will cut down the work in the future. In the short term, the work seems like it is going to be massive. Does he envisage a lot more people will have to be hired in the planning departments to cope with this or will there be local discretion? That is a multitude of questions. I am worried about all of this. I do not know if we are doing the right thing. I know we have to alleviate housing shortages but some areas, in particular regarding rural farm houses, I feel for those people at the moment.

The first question is, are the witnesses aware of the number of short-term lets which operate without planning permission in their areas? Do they see that we are going to need many more employees in the short term?

I am the planning enforcement manager in Dublin City Council. I have been dealing with the implementation of the old regulations and I have some knowledge as to what the Senator is looking for. We estimate in Dublin that the number of second properties being used for short-term letting on a full-time basis hovers between 5,000 and 7,000. Those are the approximate numbers.

In terms of the effect of the new register, the way it is going to work is to try to tackle the problem at source. In terms of the problems in identifying properties that Mr. Flynn outlined earlier on, catching tourists in properties they should not be in is an unenviable task for staff as well. Obviously, we want to deal with tourists who rent these places at face value in a sympathetic way while still trying to enforce the law, get information from them, etc. The register should give us a specific location. It will give us full contact details of the owner of the property concerned. It means that we can engage with property owners in a more seamless manner.

Mr. Downey probably will not need to because they cannot get that number unless they have fulfilled all the planning regulations and the health and safety regulations. Mr. Downey will not need to engage with them, will he?

As Fáilte Ireland pointed out to the committee, it is a self-declaration, in other words, when people fill out the register they will be asked whether they are planning compliant and do they comply with building control requirements or any other regulatory requirements. It is a tick-box exercise for all intents and purposes. What ends up happening then is Fáilte Ireland sends lists back to the local authority to check whether there is planning in place or whether there is a relevant exemption in place for the person concerned. I went through the minutes from the meeting the committee with Fáilte Ireland the last time. My understanding is their view would be if we send back information to say there is no planning or there is no exemption in place, they will then engage with the person who has registered and either suspend the registration or engage with them in another manner.

I had not thought about that part. I thought it was automatically given. I did not think it was a tick-box self-declaration.

It is self-declaration for all intents and purposes. What that means, in terms of resource implications for local authorities, is that brings a lot of short-term lets to our attention that we then know have neither planning permission nor an exemption. We have specific addresses, locations, owners, etc., that we can then go after from a planning enforcement perspective. It is a dual system. The effect is that the new register is trying to get them at source and then to have cross-referencing with local authorities where registrations can be removed and it will also bring to the knowledge of local authorities, as I said, importantly, specific addresses and locations and owners of the properties concerned.

Mr. Nolan of Kerry County Council stated that its policies are in line with the proposed national planning statement that refers to bringing old houses back to life but yet the people who have done that already are the ones who are really worried about what is going to happen. From a local point of view, will Mr. Nolan try to look after those people within the national planning statement?

What our policy allows for is that those could become short-term lettings because they will not be suitable as long term.

But they are the ones that are already there.

Yes.

Do you allocate one?

If there was an application, it would be considered favourably unless the national planning statement is going to change that, but I do not think it is. That is not the intention of it because, realistically, these could not come back into being in permanent use for long-term letting.

Mr. Nolan was talking about the number of planning applications Kerry County Council had and half of them were refused. Was that from a health and safety perspective? Mr. Nolan is in Kerry. Is it all rural?

There is nothing that really-----

Stands out.

-----stands out. I suppose some of them could be used for long-term rental accommodation and, therefore, we deem them as being inappropriate for short-term letting.

It is my turn for questions. I thank all the witnesses for their opening statements. When Mr. Hogan made his opening statement, he said that 1.3% of short-term let properties in Ireland are, according to the Fáilte Ireland data, planning compliant. That means 99% of them are not. By any standards, 99% of something is everything.

Given what Mr. Downey was saying there in terms of the register, the self-declaring and the tick-boxing, there is quite a gap between what we are hearing from people who already operate short-term lets on what they imagine they are going to have to go through to obtain planning permission to be planning compliant and this concept of an online register where you log on, you tick the box and you have a number. I absolutely see the value from a planning enforcement perspective of there being a register, and you have got details and contacts, but how are we going to get from all of the properties at present not being planning compliant to them being so? Have the local authorities made an application for additional resources already, because I know planning enforcement in Dublin City Council is flat out? I am sure the planning enforcement sections in the 30 other local authorities have to be under very significant pressure as well. This is a huge planning undertaking and for it to be implemented, it is going to require more than an online system. It is going to require a very significant human resource. Has an application been received by the Department from the 31 local authorities?

We have, since October of last year, an action plan for planning resources. That was introduced as a ministerial action plan at the same time as we enacted-----

Was this specifically for the short-term letting?

No.

Generally.

We have been dealing with that separately. We have been funding enforcement of that but certainly the action plan for planning resources, which Mr. O'Sullivan can talk about, has a number of different strands to enhance the planning capacity of the local government sector, including direct recruitment.

I will hand over to Mr. O'Sullivan. I will come back to my point.

On the numbers we are expecting, the clear signal from the Government in April was that anything over 10,000 would be generally precluded. Within the 35,000 short-term lets at present, as our colleagues in Dublin alluded to, there are approximately 7,000 or 8,000 second homes. Under this system, they will not get planning permission. If they want to still apply for it, that is their choice but we do not envisage a large number applying because they will not get it.

For the others, we estimate 18,000, 19,000 or 20,000 will be applying throughout all 31 local authorities. We have the ministerial action plan that Mr. Hogan referenced in place. There were approximately 540 staff identified in the local authorities required. We have sanctioned 211. That is probably going to go to over 250 in the coming weeks. That is moving at pace as well.

On the broader picture of resourcing of planning in general, there is a multitude on the education side, for example, in getting planners out of college. At present, only half the places in planning courses are being filled and we are looking at that across the board to see how do we increase the numbers coming out of college, as well as possible apprenticeships. We are pulling a lot of levers on the planning resources to get them into the system but also, as Mr. Hogan mentioned, there is dedicated funding of short-term letting enforcement, which has been to the value of €1.7 million per year for the last couple of years since the 2019 regulations came in.

I will ask Mr. O'Sullivan about the discretion that local authorities are going to have. There will be the national planning statement, and that is being made in consultation with the CCMA and the local authorities. What level of discretion will local authorities have on an independent basis locally to make decisions on individual applications?

What we hope within the national planning statement is to set out the criteria. The first one is areas over 10,000 are generally precluded. Under that-----

Anybody living in a populated area of more than 10,000 should not apply, because they are not going to get it. It is a waste of time. That is the message we should be sending out. They are not going to get permission for a short-term let in an area with a population in excess than 10,000.

As per a decision in April of this year, that is the case.

It is important to get that message out clearly to people.

It is important to say that there could well be purpose-built, short-term visitor accommodation that has a particular planning permission for that and that is fine. There may be other exceptions or circumstances. The one already referenced is if it is a historic building and would benefit from use that is viable, as opposed to being suitable for standard residential accommodation. There may be circumstances where it is merited and is okay. There will not be a blanket ban. There will have to be exceptions and discretion from the local authority. If it is a standard, purpose-built apartment for general living accommodation, the preclusion would apply in that situation.

Have the local authorities already been provided with guidance on what those possible exemptions will look like? Already they are being approached by applicants asking questions. Do the local authorities already have guidance on that?

The local authorities are informing us on how we formulate the planning statement. A lot of it is based on their experience of what might be suitable and what might not. We have heard examples of very proximate or auxiliary dwellings, or whatever the Cathaoirleach wants to call them, to existing farmhouses and that sort of thing. That is a particular example.

In the absence of the national planning statement, the local authorities are determining on an individual basis the discretion they will apply.

That is the purpose of the planning system. It is to enable local authorities to assess development proposals. Not everything has a specific form of guidance. One of the issues for us in seeking policy direction from Government in relation to where the threshold should be, is just that fine balance between the needs of the tourist sector and the fact that housing is an absolute priority for the country and the Government. There is that balance. It is unfair to expect the planning system solely to be able to sort that out in every case and to make that view as to what is more important on a case-by-case basis. The policy guidance or direction we have received from Government in relation to the larger towns and cities is the fact that above that threshold the general presumption is against - with exceptions - and below that, there is definitely more scope for discretion and local decision-making.

I thank our witnesses for joining us today. They have all got hotels and guest houses existing in their counties. Do they see this as providing an equal playing field? I will leave that open to the representatives of any county. If the witnesses want me to explain a little further, right now, short-term lets is essentially a separate sector. Fáilte Ireland is going to bring them all in under a register. It is going to be a more recognised form tourism accommodation provision. Do the witnesses think it will bring a greater level of equality across the sector?

I will come back on that to Deputy Clendennen. In relation to Dublin city as such, with regards to the suite of accommodation that is available at the minute, of the rooms there are available, 64% are coming from hotels, 12% from guest houses and bed and breakfast accommodation, and approximately 7% from rented and other sources, such as caravans, camping hostels, etc. There is a suite of measures there. What we have all highlighted quite clearly in our statements is there has been a reduction in budget accommodation in all of our towns and cities because this accommodation has been taken up for other purposes. If that accommodation was to become available over the next number of years, that certainly would allow or facilitate more of an offering for budget accommodation. Where we would see the interest in the Airbnb market would be in the context of a full apartment or house, but it is mostly apartments in the city context. If a person is bringing his or her family over, etc., that is attractive for the simple reason that they have the full apartment and the family stays together as a unit.

How would Mr. Flynn describe the difference between an aparthotel and an apartment?

One is specifically designed and has been approved from the planning context for apartment-short-term usage, whereas an apartment is designated as a person's, in most cases, principal residence.

If we are now looking at the register through Fáilte Ireland and planning compliance, will those same standards be applied by local authorities?

As Mr. Downey said earlier, the answer is "Yes" but it is a self-declaration. That is our understanding in that regard. In the absence of that, the current status quo applies.

Okay. If a short-term let family business, or whatever Mr. Flynn wants to call it -a stakeholder - goes on to the Fáilte Ireland register and self-declares as planning compliant, God forbid something happened and there was a fire. Where would that stand in relation to a declaration to council and insurance cover?

We touched on this a minute ago, but we will go back to it for the Deputy.

My name is John Downey, I am the planning enforcement manager in Dublin City Council. Our view on the declaration is that it is a statutory declaration that ultimately is being made, albeit through an electronic form. As for the effect of knowingly making a false declaration, the onus would be on the person who made the false declaration if any issues arose following the making of that.

To give peace of mind to short-term letters, should there be encouragement from Fáilte Ireland to engage with an industry professional to get certification, rather than looking at this retrospectively?

Absolutely. The advice on this is if a person has a second property and is letting it for short-term letting purposes, regardless of the 10,000 cap or whatever, he or she needs planning permission for that. Planning permission and fire safety requirements come into it as well, particularly in cases of apartments. The other thing is it is a material change of use from residential to full-time letting. Again, material changes of use have building control and fire implications and a whole lot like that. They absolutely do need to engage with competent professionals early on with regard to this.

Will the witnesses be applying additional resources in relation to follow-up or what I will call inspections? I do not want to say "enforcement".

Again, we touched on this earlier on.

I apologise.

It is no problem at all. I will go through it again briefly. When somebody goes to register on the register, they obviously make a series of declarations. They give information with regard to where the property is, their name, address, eircode, telephone number and the whole lot. Our view on this is that Fáilte Ireland will send lists to us, possibly monthly, to check to see if they are planning compliant or if they are exempt from planning. We will then obviously know if they are not exempt from planning or if they do not have planning permission at which point, if we have the resources, we will follow up with inspections.

I will quote Mr. Downey's phrase there, “if we have the resources".

Correct.

What resources will Mr. Downey have next December versus this December to inspect or enforce this area?

We have nine people working full-time on short-term letting. That is dealing both with complaints and dealing proactively with registrations pulled off websites where we actually are going out and inspecting.

Are nine people working full-time solely on short-term letting?

They are assigned solely on short-term lettings. As the Chair alluded to earlier, we have about 2,000 ongoing live enforcement cases within Dublin City Council. They are probably on short-term letting 80% of the time.

Does that mean they all have around 200 files each?

No, they do not. Where is the Deputy getting the number of 200 from?

If there are 2,000 and nine is divided by 2,000-----

No, we have resolved 2,000 to date. We have opened 2,500 files to date. We have resolved 2,100 of those cases to date approximately. So, we have a balance of 400 live active files. We only open active files where we have a reasonable belief that short-term letting is taking place. We have two or three people scrolling through platforms on a full-time basis trying to pull out relevant ads for properties that we can identify.

Does Dublin City Council do similar inspections right across the tourism bed providers, such as hotels, to ensure they are compliant?

No. The compliance is planning compliance.

I appreciate that.

A hotel would already have permission for its use as a hotel or it would be pre-1963 use as a hotel.

I need to interrupt Deputy Clendennen and to allow Deputy Gogarty in for round two.

Mr. Downey raised some valid points about the box-ticking exercise. There are two angles to this. One is ticking a box to confirm compliance. Then all of a sudden, all these addresses in Dublin can be checked to see if they are compliant and the chances are a lot of them are not compliant. Doing that search is subject to resources. From my work as a councillor, I know that if enforcement issues are brought to court, only a small number get through but it would act as a deterrent. It might also stop certain people ticking the box in the first place because they know that they can be found out. They will not be able to advertise a property on Airbnb, Vrbo or whatever because they have not got their little number from Fáilte Ireland. That is well and good and it helps. Hopefully this will stop a lot of people making a killing while there is a housing crisis, especially in our towns and cities.

I address this question to Mr. O'Sullivan. We have the ArcGIS maps and the Irish townlands historical map viewers like that provided by Tailte Éireann My hope is that when the planning statement comes out, we will have a map that people can zoom in on and see the areas outside the 10,000-population towns so that anyone in somewhere like Roscommon town can click in and see that their house outside the coloured-in zone outside Roscommon town and therefore it looks like they are exempt from having to apply for change of use. Will there be that level of detail and clarification for people?

We are using the census map. When people log in to the census they can see the key towns, which have the boundaries within the census. That will probably be - we are still working through it - the map to be used.

There is still a requirement for planning compliance. Even those outside the large town or city boundary will have to demonstrate planning compliance in the particular circumstance.

With the temporary designation of a rent-pressure zone for the whole country, does that mean the short-term lettings will still have to apply anywhere in the country?

That is the current situation and that has existed since June.

However, after May-----

The EU directive applies nationally and the requirement for planning compliance, for registration, applies nationally.

Fáilte Ireland was happy enough that the EU directive would be satisfied by just having a register of short-term lettings. However, the planning requirement is to stop people abusing the system. In that context Mr. Hogan has obviously not been given information from the ministerial side that that will change. Is he saying on the public record today that irrespective of whether it is a 10,000-population area, every single person offering a short-term let has to apply for planning permission for change of use from May?

That is the current situation.

I know it is now, but the idea was to simplify it. What is the point in having a 10,000-population area if nowhere is exempt?

The purpose of the 10,000-population policy direction decision was to give some direction as to where this is acutely problematic in terms of housing supply. Clearly, in larger towns and cities where employment and services are concentrated, there is a need for a diverse rental market and there are alternative visitor accommodation options. However, broadly speaking in smaller towns, villages and rural areas, there are not those alternative visitor accommodation options and certainly not the concentration of things like hospitals and places of employment where a rental market is needed. It was to give some policy clarity on where the direction would be in terms of general presumption in favour and general presumption against and to craft the policies from that perspective. It is not an absolute that above 10,000 it is refused and below 10,000 it is granted; there has to be local discretion. We are trying to provide some rules that are generally fair and applicable to circumstances but also allow a degree of discretion. That is the nature of planning. Every application is different. Every site is different. Every circumstance is different. There are obviously relevant considerations for any particular type of use. Depending on what it is and where it is, short-term letting has different implications.

Mr Hogan has just said it does not really depend on where it is because it applies nationwide. I do not think that is something Fáilte Ireland was aware of.

It is. That requirement for planning compliance applies nationally.

It does as of now, but my understanding is that was a stopgap until the May designation. The rent pressure zones were brought in for the whole country but in future the rent pressure zones will not apply in the whole country. That is my understanding.

Mr. Kelly will be able to talk about this, but we will not have rent-pressure zones as I understand it.

After May, because that is when they have to tick the box, anyone in the country offering a short-term letting will have to pay between €800 and €1,500 to submit an application including drawings, etc., to a local authority. The local authority will then make the decision and it may decide because they are having a couple of people stay over, they will have to pay for services and it will cost more again. That sounds like the process.

No. If someone is living in the property and having a couple of people stay over-----

I am talking about where they are not living in the property. I am talking about a family with a holiday home that they use for a good part of the year and rent out for the other part or someone who has a farmhouse with a building next door and they might have a relative coming for Christmas or for a couple of weeks in the summer and it is idle they are not going to rent it out to anyone long term and they are not going to sell it either. Will they now have a very onerous requirement to apply for a change of use even though it is the same type of house on the same type of use? I would have thought that is a regulation issue and a licensing issue rather than a planning issue.

If it is a change of use that comes within the definition of a change of use, for example from residential to commercial use, it requires planning permission. We would be very clear about the circumstances in which planning permission is required in the guidelines because that is the start point.

Every operator in the country will be required to show they are planning compliant by May by having planning permission from a local authority. This goes back to the other point, which is that if the planning framework is coming out, hopefully in January, and people know there is a five-week process for applications followed by a four-week process for appeals to An Coimisiún Pleanála, realistically they are not going to be ready by May.

We said that we would have to account for an appropriate transition from the time that the national planning statement is agreed by Government to when it is required to have a final permission, or what defines planning compliant, for purposes of moving forward into next year.

As I said at the outset, we are cognisant of the reality of people maybe having pre-bookings for next year and things like that, but the requirement for planning permission in RPZs for second homes has been there since 2019. The simplification in terms of it being nationwide has been there since the middle of this year.

I have questions for the councils, excluding Dublin City Council. Is this going to substantially increase their housing supplies? Is this going to negatively impact their tourism offering in their counties? I asked another question initially but did not get an answer except from Dublin City Council, that being, how many units in the witnesses' counties are short-term lets without planning permission? I will start with Kerry County Council, please.

It is difficult to say how many units this will bring back into the long-term rental market. Some of the analysis done to date estimates that it could be around 1,800 units across the entire county.

I am not familiar with housing in Kerry, but in Kerry terms, will that substantially impact the county's housing offering?

It would, but it is dispersed right across the county. Some of those will be in areas where there would not be a significant need-----

Demand.

-----or demand for actual rental accommodation, exactly.

Those are obviously tourist areas, so will it impact negatively on tourism there?

The difficulty is that, in some of those areas that are high-tourism areas and where there are properties that could be used for long-term rental, they are second homes, so chances are they will not come back into the long-term rental market. They will probably continue to be utilised as short-term letting as long as those people are compliant with the new registration requirements and planning and building control requirements.

Mr. Nolan reckons Kerry will have 1,800 units.

That is the estimate within reports that we have seen to date from the ESRI, Airbnb and the sector looking at the matter itself. It is potentially up to 1,800 units that may be suitable.

Mr. Nolan would hardly know how many houses there to rent in Kerry at the moment compared to how many holiday homes there are.

I do not know that off the top of my head.

That is alright. I should not have asked. What about Clare County Council?

Will the Senator repeat the questions, please?

Sure. Will this substantially increase the council's housing supply, will it negatively impact the county's tourism offering, and how many units in the county are short-term lets without planning permission?

If it is okay, I will start with the last one on how many properties we have that do not have planning permission. We do not have a database. We do not have a succinct way of being able to determine that. Anecdotally, we can presume that the majority, based on the information available nationally, do not have planning permission, but we do not have a database that we can cross-reference.

If we started out on this Bill, I am sure we would be in touch with all of the councils to see how many houses there are in their areas without the right planning permission that we could bring back into the housing sector. Do we not know that number in each of the counties?

We do not have a definitive number. We have anecdotal evidence and we have permutations. We estimate, based on our research, that we have about 1,660 short-term let properties across County Clare. Some of those may be holiday homes that have a defined planning permission, in that planning permission was sought for them as holiday homes. That is what they are being used for and rented out as.

Okay.

On whether it will substantially increase the housing supply, the short answer is, "We do not know". We have areas of high demand and, anecdotally, there are inferences that the local person is priced out of the market. That is more a second home issue rather than a short-term rental piece.

What I am hearing on the ground is that people are more likely to leave a property vacant than they are to provide it to the long-term rental market.

I am hearing that as well.

In terms of the negative impact on tourism, the local authority is endeavouring to provide a balance. Our objective is to support our communities-----

That is putting pressure on the council, which is the worry for businesses like mine and those in that sector.

Yes. Much of our indigenous residential population depends on tourism for their livelihoods, so we need to ensure that we balance that with the need to provide housing. This is something that local authorities are endeavouring to do every day.

The same questions for Cork.

I will not be able to provide that information. There is insufficient data to give the definitive number the Senator is asking for. To give an example for Cork, the number of second homes and holiday homes in Cork is 7,252. The number of short-term lets, for example, those advertised on Airbnb, is approximately 2,800, depending on what month we look at. A lot of our holiday homes have planning permission, so they would be exempt anyway. If we go back to the 1990s and early 2000s, there was a tax incentive to build holiday homes, so there would be a lot of holiday home provision anyway with planning permission in the rural and tourism areas of Cork. It is difficult for us to say how many it might bring back because, again, if holiday homes are built as holiday homes, they would not be suitable to bring into long-term rental. Anecdotally, the opposite is also happening where houses that got planning permission as holiday homes in tourism areas are now being lived in all year round. These are in contravention of their planning because they would have only got planning for a different use. This is a really complex planning area for local authorities.

For rural County Cork, short-term letting is very important. Like my colleagues, we do not have a lot of hotels in our small areas like Union Hall, Goleen and Castletownbere, and people are actually looking for the type of holiday that involves short-term lets, where they get a whole house to themselves and can bring the kids and do their own cooking.

Absolutely.

That is the market in a rural area. Not to avoid the question, but it is a difficult one to answer. The register is very welcome because that will give us line of sight of where houses are and where they are being used, including holiday homes.

Just to summarise, I think everybody is saying that the register is going to be a positive thing, but no one from any of the councils present is sure that this is going to massively increase our housing supply. I believe I am summarising correctly when I say that people are worried or not sure about the impact it will have on rural tourism. We are also not sure about how many units we have that do not have the right planning permission. I think that is a fair enough summary of what we have just established there.

I have to head. I thank the witnesses very much. It is much appreciated.

Could I just come in on that?

Sure.

We do not necessarily have a county-by-county perspective, but the ESRI's report on the short-term letting sector from earlier this year estimated that just under one third of what was then in short-term letting would come back into the general, private housing market. We have also documented the fact that we have seen a fall in the commencement of tenancies since the period 2018 to 2020, when it was about 75,000 or 80,000 commencements in residential tenancies per annum, to about 55,000 or thereabouts in 2023. There has been a loss of some 20,000 rental properties from the general market and they are estimating that maybe 10,000 could come back. There are other reasons, clearly, and it is not just short-term letting, but-----

I appreciate that this is just one strategy as part of a whole overall housing strategy and that housing is literally one of the single most important things we need to address. I am just unsure as to whether this is going to be the silver bullet. I thank Mr. Hogan for clarifying.

I thank Senator Nelson Murray. It is back to me and then I will be coming to Deputy Dolan. When do we think the Fáilte Ireland database will be open for early registration?

We would not know. The Department of tourism is leading on that work.

Has it given the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage any indication yet?

I think it is the end of May.

Yes. As members will know, the legislation still has to go through the Oireachtas. It can only be after that, but I am sure we can clarify that.

That Department is saying early May to come online.

I would not have thought that the setting up of a database would necessarily have to be subject to primary legislation. Operationally, the work could already be in place to establish the database and have it built in a way that it would be compliant with GDPR and all of the data privacy issues.

The actual database, though, is dependent on the legislation passing. Is that correct? Is that the understanding at the moment?

That is my understanding-----

Okay.

-----but it is not 100% certain.

Does Mr. Downey have something to add?

Yes. My understanding is that it is tied into the EU legislation. I think the dates are all coming online more or less at the same time, so my understanding is it cannot be operative until the start of May 2026. It is, though, fully complete, designed, functioning and the whole lot to the best of my knowledge.

Mr. Downey said he anticipates the local authorities will receive a list from Fáilte Ireland once a month or once a quarter of properties on its register. I would have anticipated that the local authorities would just have access to the register and not be receiving an emailed list.

In fairness, the sharing mechanisms have not been agreed with us to date. I was taking information from the minutes of the meeting Fáilte Ireland had with the committee. I went through those minutes and reading them seemed to indicate to me that Fáilte Ireland would periodically send us lists for us to verify. I am going on that at the moment.

Okay. I think if we are going through primary legislation to set up a database, let us include in the legislation that the database will be accessible to the local authorities in real time. I think that would be optimal really.

One of the innovations of this legislation is that this is fully intended to enable that sort of joined-up enforcement. It is a game-changer for enforcement basically.

Yes, of course it is. What is the Department anticipating will be the length of the transitionary period? Let us say the database goes live on 20 May 2026 and 99% of our short-term lets are not registered. What timeframe are we expecting to set as being a reasonable one for a transition?

I think we have to weigh it up against the fact that the requirement for planning permission is there now, so it is not a total surprise for people. We will obviously have to reflect on what the final draft statement says and then relate that to what an appropriate transitional period will be. This is because, depending on what is set out and what the rules are, this will have an impact on what timescales are required and what provisions need to be made.

Are we talking about months or years?

I would say it is more like months.

Okay. There would be a transitionary period of six to 12 months.

Again, the provisions and measures will I suppose have to relate to whatever period is appropriate. Without saying definitely that it will be X or Y number of months, it is more like that.

Just in terms of the planning permission exemptions, Ms Coleman gave a really good example of where there were purpose-built summer or holiday homes, as she referred to them. When they were granted planning permission, they would have received planning permission as holiday homes. The fact, then, that those holiday homes are going to be made available on a short-term letting basis is not going to trigger a new planning requirement because they will already have planning permission to be holiday homes. Is that correct?

My understanding is that one of the exemptions is if a property already has planning permission for that purpose.

What other types of properties will applicants not be required to engage an architect for? This is the big worry. We can understand the population element, the time a property is allowed to be used for a short-term letting, that a property is not a primary residence and that it is an entire property. What other properties, though, will not require the engaging of an architect?

First, the requirement for planning permission does have a certain level of information required. If we are weighing this up against the potential benefit to the individual of short-term letting, it is not a hugely onerous requirement to be planning compliant and to engage an appropriate professional to secure that. Having said that, we do not want to unnecessarily inundate local authorities with excess paperwork. Most planning applications are dealt with online now anyway. We would like, I think, to consider in terms of the planning regulations we are revising as part of the implementation of the Planning and Development Act 2024 what potentially might be suitable for this type of change-of-use application. We have not made any decisions around this aspect, but if it can assist in not creating a huge workload and in making the process easier for applicants, we will do that. These are all things currently being considered. We have not made any final decisions.

Okay. Go raibh maith agat. I call Deputy Dolan.

I notice that in an earlier contribution, Mr. Hogan said 20,000 units have left the rental sector. Has any analysis been done of the breakdown of the reasons for exit and whether this was by virtue of sales or the number that went onto letting platforms? Has any analysis or breakdown been done for that? Where did that number of 20,000 units having left the rental sector come from?

The number came from an ESRI report on the short-term letting sector that was specific to that from earlier this year. That study is available.

Yes.

When people are leaving the rental market, we generally know the reason. We publish data on the RTB's website and it gives data on the number of people who leave or issue a notice of termination to tenants, which typically will include reasons for selling the property or giving it to a family member, etc. The ESRI data made an estimate. I think Fáilte Ireland has more up-to-date data. The ESRI indicated that it thought one third of the properties would come back in. It recognised, and the colleague from Cork mentioned, that some people will not bring them onto the rental market because they are holiday homes. I think, therefore, that it took a fairly conservative estimate of what would happen.

I appreciate that. The number of people who have left the rental market has definitely been a concern over the past two to three years. One thing I was seeing was a significant number of people being issued with notices to quit due to the landlord selling the property. Obviously, the Government tried to help in that situation by bringing in the tenant in situ scheme. A lot of the exits I was dealing with and seeing, however, were not primarily because of short-term lets. They were because of the landlord saying enough was enough and they were out, and that is fair enough.

I want to push back on one thing said. It was mentioned that it is not too much of a request to see people go for planning permission to retain a unit, a pod or something like this. I just want to talk from experience of dealing with local authorities. I represent Galway East and we have a rake of Airbnbs all over the place that probably are not registered and do not have planning permission but they serve a massive tourism function. I just know that when these people go for planning permission it is not going to be €1,000 or €2,000 they are going to have to pay. In excess of €5,000 will be required to go and get an engineer to actually do one of these reports. The county council will then say that an entryway is coming out onto a national road and it will be necessary to go and do a road audit or report. It could also be the case that a property is in a strategic area of conservation and a wildlife survey is needed. All this will be piled onto people, and there is really no need for it because these properties have been in existence for many years now and are operating effectively.

I just fear that a huge amount of pressure is going to be put on the local authorities and that they will be under so much pressure they are going to default to not approving these things. A local authority will never default to approving these things, so it will be a default, "No". It will just put people into awkward positions. I know I might be generalising a bit much, but I would like to hear the witnesses' thoughts regarding how they see the planning working out for many of these smaller units, pods, modular units, units connected to homes and all these different types of units when this register comes into play.

The planning system operates and exists for a reason. There are very good reasons development needs to be assessed. In many instances, if a development has been operating for a number of years and retention permission is applied for, there has been an opportunity to see the development in operation. That can assist the decision-making process but it does not make it all right if something is a dangerous traffic hazard or if it risks polluting a protected watercourse. These are real considerations. I am not suggesting that is the case generally but, accepting the fact that there has been very limited engagement with the planning system by the sector to date, we will endeavour to make it a little bit more user-friendly and predictable through the national planning statement. That is one of the benefits of having the opportunity to do this in concert with the introduction of the registration.

A big gripe of mine is the use of terraced houses or apartments here in Dublin for Airbnb or short-term lets. That does not make sense. They were not built or provided for that purpose and, correctly, they do not have planning permission for that purpose. However, I then see many people in my own constituency of Galway East providing units or pods that do not have planning permission. These were never intended to provide long-term rental accommodation. If these people are told that is not viable or if they cannot get planning permission, many of these people will not continue with that business. There needs to be some sort of distinction between a terraced house or apartment in a large town and units in rural settings where they are the only tourist accommodation we have and where they are working and bringing tourists into the area. The regulations may provide for that. If the witnesses have any detail on that, I would be happy to hear it.

That the Deputy has said is one of the tests. If planning permission was refused, would the accommodation be suitable to bring back into the general rental market? That is a key question. In a way, it speaks to its suitability. We are certainly on the same page on that consideration.

Does the Deputy have any more questions?

I am all good.

It looks like the witnesses are to be relieved from dealing with the other members of the committee. I will conclude by thanking the witnesses for their contributions today, which were very useful and which will help us enormously in producing our draft report. I will now adjourn the committee, which will next meet in public session on Wednesday, 17 December, at 12.30 p.m. We will have a private virtual meeting of the committee on Tuesday, 16 December at 2.15 p.m.