We are now in public session and everyone is welcome to our public meeting. Before we proceed, I have a few housekeeping matters to go through. I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the House as regards references the witnesses make to other persons in their evidence. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentations they make to the committee. This means that they have an absolute defence against any defamation action in respect of anything they say at the meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty, as Chair, to ensure that the privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, witnesses will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. One of our witnesses today is giving their evidence remotely from outside the parliamentary precincts and, as such, may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness physically present does. They may think it appropriate to take legal advice on this matter.

I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they 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, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member partaking via Microsoft Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm that they are on the grounds of 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 and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

I suggest we invite our witnesses to speak for up to ten minutes and then allow members to ask questions and make comments for approximately seven minutes each. If time permits we may have a second round of questions when members will be allowed around four minutes to ask questions or make comments. Members may be called as they appear on the week three speaking rota. Committee members may substitute within their party or group. Attendees who are not members of the committee may speak only after committee members or substitutes have spoken. Is that agreed? Agreed.

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

The minutes of the previous meeting on 11 February 2026 were circulated in private session. Are they agreed? Agreed.

Today’s engagement is pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism Bill 2025. The Minister referred the revised general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism Bill 2025 to the committee on 17 September 2025. Since then the committee has met many stakeholders, Departments and State bodies. On behalf of the committee I thank all those who assist the committee in its ongoing scrutiny of this important legislation. This is our last scheduled public meeting on this general scheme. It is important at this point to reflect on behalf of the members of the committee that we have at all times done our level best to explore this topic and issue and to bring to the attention of the Departments involved concerns that have been brought by relevant stakeholders.

I am delighted to welcome representatives from Historic Houses of Ireland, Mr. Justin Green, chairman, and Mr. Thomas Emmet, events and external relations officer; from Booking.com, Ms Fiona MacConnacher, head of public affairs for Ireland and the UK; and from the Irish Self-Catering Federation, Mr. Derek Keogh, chairperson, Ms Máire Ní Mhurchú, chief executive officer, and board members Ms Lisa Argue and Mr. Tomás O'Keeffe.

I now invite Mr. Thomas Emmet from Historic Houses of Ireland to make his opening statement.

We thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for the invitation to appear before them today. I am the events and external relations officer of Historic Houses of Ireland. With me is Justin Green, our chairman, who is the owner of Ballyvolane House in County Cork.

Historic Houses of Ireland is a registered charity, founded in 2008. We represent the custodians of Ireland’s historic homes, buildings, estates, gardens and archives that remain in private hands. Our membership ranges from modest country houses, thatched cottages and vernacular farmhouses to some of Ireland’s most recognisable castles and estates. Perhaps surprisingly, more than three quarters of our member houses are no longer in the hands of the original family. The vast majority have been taken on as a labour of love. We are grateful to be supported in this work through the Heritage Council’s heritage organisation support fund, and wish to put on record our thanks to it for its long-term commitment to our work.

I should declare a personal interest at the outset. I am also a next-generation heritage property owner myself, at Altidore Castle in Wicklow, and I chair the Young Irish Georgians, a network for the next generation of heritage custodians and every young person passionate about the survival of Ireland’s built heritage, so the issues I am raising today are not abstract to me.

I want to say clearly at the outset that we support this legislation.

We welcome the creation of a national register for short-term tourist accommodation. It will bring transparency and standards to the sector, of which over half of our members are a part. We also fully recognise the need to return properties in urban areas to the long-term housing market. That is not in dispute. However, I am here today because we are genuinely worried about what this Bill will mean for the people we represent and, through them, for the heritage they protect and the communities they sustain.

Our members’ properties are overwhelmingly in rural Ireland. They are on the record of protected structures in their respective counties. They include thatched cottages as well as Georgian houses, Victorian estates and medieval tower houses. These are not commercial operators in any conventional sense. They are families who have rescued or inherited extraordinary buildings and who carry, largely without public funding, the enormous cost of maintaining and restoring them.

Our 2025 annual survey of members, a summary of which we are happy to share with the committee, paints a stark picture. The costs of maintaining an historic property are endless and constantly increasing. For instance, 91% of our members rank insurance costs as one of their top three concerns, the single most cited challenge by a huge margin. Standard insurers routinely refuse to cover heritage properties and specialist heritage insurance premiums can be multiples of what a modern home would cost because protected structures must by law be rebuilt using original materials and specialist conservation craftspeople. Tourism accommodation income is how many of our members, particularly on the smaller end, stay afloat. It funds the roof repairs, the conservation work, the rewiring and the insurance premiums. It is often the difference between a building that thrives and one that falls into decline.

These are not just private benefits. The contribution of heritage houses to rural Ireland goes far beyond employment and visitor spending, important as those are. Our members are custodians of biodiversity, managing gardens, woodlands and demesne landscapes that function as vital habitats for pollinator species and native wildlife. Many have undertaken rewilding and nature restoration projects on their estates. They host community events such as concerts, markets, heritage open days and school visits. They maintain archives and collections that are part of the cultural record of the country. In communities where the local church has closed and the post office is gone, the historic house is often the last anchor of community life and identity.

Heritage tourism is one of rural Ireland’s most authentic economic assets. When an historic house opens its doors to visitors, the local community benefits directly - the restaurants, the shops, the local attractions and the tradespeople and conservation craftspeople who carry out the restoration work. Fáilte Ireland’s research shows that for every euro spent on accommodation, €2.50 is spent locally in other businesses. We need to protect that not, inadvertently undermine it. Combined, our members have over 2,000 bed spaces that could contribute to rural tourism. Legislation that undermines that intent would have a massive impact in every rural area in Ireland.

What concerns us? The Bill requires all short-term let hosts to register with Fáilte Ireland by 20 May this year and to confirm their compliance with planning requirements. We support this principle, but let me describe what it looks like in practice for our members. One of our members, an elderly couple of limited means, have spent years restoring a single turret room on the wall of their estate, a room that was derelict for decades before they brought it back to life, and now wish to let it to visitors. They are terrified of falling foul of planning rules. Others plan to convert Georgian coach houses and other outbuildings on their protected estate into guest suites using conservation craftspeople and heritage-grade materials at enormous expense to create something that is both authentic and beautiful. Still others have derelict gate lodges, small buildings at the end of a long avenue that could never function as someone’s long-term home. Hermitages, ice houses, stables, gamekeeper’s huts and yurts, all of which are ripe for the rural tourism landscape, are placed at risk by a lack of clarity and common-sense exemptions and the threat of planning enforcement.

The national planning statement that is supposed to set out how local authorities should handle these applications has not yet been published. We are three months from the deadline and our members do not know what the rules will be. Data cited at this committee’s session in December indicated that just 1.3% of short-term lets in the State were planning-compliant so what hope is there for complex historic structures that require sensitive conservation and special planning considerations? The Irish Tourist Industry Confederation, ITIC, has warned of a cliff edge - tens of thousands of properties available on 19 May and virtually none on 20 May. That is a real risk for tourism capacity across the country, but for our members it is an existential one.

What do we need? First, the national planning statement must be published urgently. Three months from the deadline, the people affected by this legislation still do not know what will be expected of them. Second, there must be a reasonable grace period from when the national planning statement is published during which hosts can register with Fáilte Ireland while their planning applications are being processed. ITIC has previously called for nine months. It prevents the cliff edge without undermining the regulatory objectives. We support that as a minimum but anticipate that most heritage properties will require something closer to two years to get their planning affairs in order. Third, and most importantly from our perspective, we must have exemptions for historic and heritage properties that cannot be deemed suitable for long-term housing stock. Buildings and structures within the curtilage of a principal private residence that are unsuitable for long-term residential letting such as turrets, gate lodges, coach houses, stable yard conversions and walled garden cottages on protected estates should be exempted from the change-of-use requirement. Indeed they should be treated as if those beds were an intrinsic part of the principal residence. The requirements for houses open under section 482 with Revenue and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage already take into consideration curtilage when granting aid, so there is precedent for this in existing legislation.

We understand that vernacular buildings such as thatched cottages are being considered for exemption in the national planning statement. We welcome that. We represent thatch owners among our members. We believe the same logic should apply to heritage buildings more broadly. These properties are not part of the housing supply and never will be. Requiring change-of-use planning permission for them serves no housing policy objective but removing them from the tourism market will irreparably damage heritage preservation and the rural economies that depend on it.

I will leave the committee with two figures from our recent survey. A total of 80% of our members have a next generation ready to take on their house but only 58% believe their house will actually survive into the next generation. That gap between willingness and viability is the story of heritage ownership in Ireland today and it is a gap that this legislation, if not carefully calibrated, risks widening further. Our members need to be able to carry on with confidence. They need to know that the legislation they are being asked to comply with will not inadvertently take away the income that keeps their buildings standing and that funds the insurance premiums, the conservation specialists and the jobs that these houses sustain in their local communities. Without that confidence, the risk is very real - a near future of decline and dereliction across some of Ireland’s most important heritage properties in rural communities that can least afford to lose them. We have seen heritage properties that were once a community resource - open to visitors, hosting events and employing local people - sold to owners with no interest in maintaining that public role. That is the future this legislation risks accelerating. We are not asking for the legislation to be weakened; we are asking for it to be right. We are not asking for special treatment; we are asking for appropriate treatment. The legislation already recognises that different property types should be treated differently, for example, the population threshold, the principal private residence exemption and the 90-day rule. We are asking that the same logic be applied to heritage buildings that are by their nature unsuitable for long-term residential use.

We support the register, we support the objectives of this Bill and we want to work with the committee and with Government to make sure it works for everyone, including the custodians of Ireland’s built heritage. Mr. Green and I are very happy to take questions.

I thank the committee for the opportunity to appear before it today. I lead public affairs for Ireland and the UK at Booking.com. I appreciate the chance to contribute to the committee's scrutiny of the general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism Bill.

Booking.com was founded 30 years ago this year in our home city of Amsterdam. We have an established business presence in Ireland with our local partner services operation based in Dublin 2. Through our local partners, we offer a wide range of accommodation options, including the selfcatering properties or shortterm lets that are the subject of this Bill. To begin with, I would like to quote the Minister’s words from the national tourism policy statement published in December last year:

Tourism is one of Ireland’s most vital indigenous industries. It is a cornerstone of regional economies, supporting thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises across the country. It generates significant revenue, sustains employment, and drives development in both urban centres and rural communities.

Visitors to Ireland, both domestic and international, stay in a variety of accommodation. In many rural areas with no hotels, selfcatering accommodation is sometimes the only bricksandmortar tourism accommodation available. In urban centres, a choice of accommodation allows visitors to choose what suits their needs best. This is not a new concept. Many Irish families have been providing selfcatering accommodation across the country for generations. We also recognise the serious challenges presented by the housing crisis in Ireland. It is important to ensure that measures directed at addressing the housing crisis are effective and based on reliable data and impact analysis.

Across Europe, one of the central challenges for governments has been the lack of authoritative data on the number, type and location of shortterm lets. That is precisely why the EU short-term rental regulation was introduced - to give member states a sound evidence base to understand how shortterm lets interact with both the longterm rental market and tourism provision. We strongly support the core aims of the EU short-term rental regulation, which this Bill seeks to implement in Ireland.

These aims are to improve the flow of reliable, comparable data on self-catering accommodation across member states and to provide a harmonised, transparent framework for registration and data sharing between platforms and competent authorities.

Booking.com is fully committed to this framework and to helping make it a success in Ireland and across the EU. It is imperative that there is clear evidence available on the short-term rental market and that the EU regulation should be facilitated to collect the information required to allow informed decisions to be taken about short-term rentals and the general housing market. Clear and accurate data on short-term lets is urgently required to allow for evidence-based policy-making based on actual data rather than assumptions on the impact of short-term lets on housing availability. It has been a feature of the debate on short-term lets in Ireland that no reliable information has been produced on the impact of restrictions on short-term lets on the housing market or the tourism market. It is also an important opportunity to recognise and support the many Irish families and small businesses who have long provided dedicated tourism accommodation of this nature, as well as newer compliant operators taking on or starting such businesses.

Our concerns are not with the principle of registration and transparency. Rather, they relate to how the proposed Irish measures will be sequenced and implemented, particularly the link to the planning systems, the timelines for compliance, and the proportionality and practicality of obligations on platforms and small operators within these parameters. As we understand, the proposed approach being advanced by the Department of housing and the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, the following sequencing is envisaged. A national planning statement on short-term lets will be introduced but has not been published yet. However, by 20 May 2026, a new registration system must be fully operational and, under Irish Government proposals, properties will be required to be planning compliant on that date to be included on the register. For towns above a certain population threshold, it has been signalled that new planning permissions for shortterm lets are likely to be exceptional, and in smaller towns approval will be at the discretion of local authorities. We understand that the relevant population threshold is now being discussed at a level of 20,000, although we have not got confirmation of this in writing. The combined effect is that operators still do not know with certainty what planning rules will apply in their area and have no guarantee that they will be able to continue operating their business. Following any planning process, and if successful, they must then secure registration on a new national register, via a new digital system that is not yet available or fully tested, in time for a fixed and, as currently proposed, very tight deadline.

For many small operators, especially in rural and coastal destinations, this is an almost impossible challenge. There is a serious risk that a significant share of existing stock will fall out of compliance or be forced to cease operating, not because operators are unwilling to comply, but because the system is too complex and the compliance window too short. This raises genuine concerns for both operators and travellers, especially given how close these changes are to the peak summer season in Ireland. The tourism implications of that outcome would be profound. Fewer places would be available to stay in already supplyconstrained areas, limiting visitor numbers and spend in local communities. There would be uncertainty for visitors travelling to Ireland this peak season, with the potential inability to relocate guests who are unable to stay in their originally booked accommodation. There will be knock-on impacts for local businesses and employment, from cafés and pubs to visitor attractions and shops. Crucially, there is no evidence that properties exiting the shortterm lets market will enter the longterm rental market. A longterm rental and a shortterm rental are fundamentally different business models. In most cases, the properties in question were never part of the longterm rental stock to begin with.

Our central concern is that Ireland risks taking very farreaching decisions on planning and registration before the full benefits of the EU data regime are available. If thousands of shortterm lets are removed from the tourism market in a short period of time without a clear evidence base that this will materially increase longterm rental supply, there is a real risk of damaging Irish jobs, communities and the wider tourism industry, a cornerstone of the economy. For that reason, we would respectfully invite the committee to consider whether the legislation and its implementation could be sequenced so that, considering the tight parliamentary timetable, the EU short-term rental framework and the register first provide reliable data on the extent, nature and location of shortterm lets and then any more planninglinked registration conditions are calibrated in light of that evidence rather than before clear, accurate data has been obtained. This approach would likely be more consistent with the spirit and objectives of the EU regulation and would reduce the risk of unintended consequences for tourism and local economies.

We would therefore urge the committee to consider recommending a realistic transition period, particularly for existing operators, to provide certainty for their businesses and livelihoods as well as for visitors staying in Ireland, both domestically and internationally, and an approach which allows the register to provide accurate data before further regulatory interventions are introduced. Such adjustments would not dilute the policy objectives. On the contrary, they would make it far more likely that compliant hosts remain in the system, that visitors' bookings could be honoured, and that rural and regional tourism would not be unintentionally harmed.

Booking.com supports the principle of a robust, transparent registration regime for shortterm lets in Ireland, aligned with the EU short-term rental regulation. We fully recognise the Government's aim in trying to address the housing crisis, but we would note that it is equally important to safeguard Ireland's position as a worldclass tourism destination which, in turn, supports many local economies and households. Our central message is that this can best be achieved through evidencebased, proportionate and carefully sequenced measures that make full use of the new EU data framework, provide realistic pathways to compliance for hosts and avoid unintended damage to tourism provision and local economies. We are committed to being a constructive partner to the Government, Fáilte Ireland and this committee. We will continue to work with officials on the technical implementation of the register, on communications to hosts and on any refinements that may be needed as the Bill progresses, but we hope that the Government hears the real concerns of businesses of all sizes on the consequences, unintended and otherwise, of the Bill on Irish businesses.

Is mise CEO Chónaidhm Lóistín Féinfhreastail na hÉireann. Táim chun an ráiteas a roinnt idir mé féin agus cathaoirleach na cónaidhme, Derek Keogh. Gabhaim buíochas as an gcuireadh ón gcoiste. Tá líon mór oibre déanta ag an gcoiste le roinnt míonna anuas ar an mBille maidir le clárúchán lóistín féinfhreastail in Éirinn mar chuid de rialacha nua an Aontais Eorpaigh. Tá gnólachtaí beaga féinfhreastail i ngach ceantar iargúlta den tír seo agus i ngach sráidbhaile. Is gnó ban iad formhór acu agus iad ag fostú ban in áiteanna nach bhfuil mórán áiteanna eile do thurasóirí le fanacht ná poist. Dúirt Fáilte Ireland i staidéar i Meitheamh 2025 go bhfuil os cionn 40% de na leapacha sa tír i ngnólachtaí féinlóistín. Cuirtear gach aonad le díon san áireamh leis an riail nua seo, ó chaisleáin go tithe agus suímh ghlampála. Is fiú a rá go bhfuil árasáin san áireamh anseo in Éirinn faoi láthair.

The Irish SelfCatering Federation, ISCF, welcomes the invitation from the committee to discuss the general scheme of the short-term letting and tourism Bill and associated planning legislation. Formed over 25 years ago, the ISCF is a notforprofit representative body that unified smaller local groups into one national organisation. We represent owners and operators across Ireland, primarily in rural areas, though some longstanding businesses operate in towns and cities. We represent over 7,000 self-catering property owners throughout Ireland, who at the moment are concerned if they will remain in business after 20 May.

Along with lobbying on behalf of members, we provide key supports, including the national quality assurance framework, NQAF, marketing for members, including the letsgoselfcatering.ie website for direct bookings, networking, webinars, and direct engagement with owners. Members undergo visual quality assurance assessments under a memorandum of understanding, MOU, with Fáilte Ireland, and tourism-bed data is submitted to Fáilte Ireland twice a year in January and June. We are the voice of owners, and we support them on how they operate their profession.

Our members are self-catering tourism businesses, comprised of individual property owners who operate and let their own accommodation on a self-catering basis. We are not Airbnb. We are self-catering. Airbnb is an online travel agent, OTA. It is one of three in the Irish market alongside Booking.com and VRBO and, for a fee, they provide access to potential customers. The key distinction is the OTAs do not own any properties. Our members do. They either rent directly or work through local agents. To demonstrate this diversity, two members will be available online to answer members' questions.

Lisa Argue is a marketing manager with an agency based in County Kerry. Tómas O'Keeffe is a dairy farmer in County Tipperary, whose self-catering business complements and supplements the family farm’s income.

An honest, evidencebased conversation is needed about the number of selfcatering units in Ireland. In September 2025, Fáilte Ireland estimated that there were 35,400 properties offering short-term rentals nationwide. This is based on data scraping. A 2022 Fáilte Ireland report estimated that 10,731 units could migrate to the long-term market. Again, this is a figure based on data scraping, not verified supply. There is no evidence to support this claim and a lot has changed. A survey of our members showed that 90% would not return their properties to the long-term market if they were no longer able to trade. The self-catering sector is the backbone of Irish rural tourism. It did not cause the housing crisis, and neither is it the solution.

An economic report by Jim Power in 2024 on the analysis of the self-catering sector found that if 1,858 units in Kerry were closed, as was proposed in the 2022 report by Fáilte Ireland, it would remove €72.4 million from the local economy, and the loss of 6,585 units along the Wild Atlantic Way alone in that proposal equates to €256 million. There is lots of data on tourism. Eurostat is a great source of data. It shows a 34.3% increase in tourism bookings across Europe. This is not being reflected in Ireland. According to Fáilte Ireland, 51% of Irish tourism businesses reported falling revenue in 2025. Selfcatering operators were among the hardest hit, being down 62% in income. Domestic tourism fell in 2025, with only 25% opting for self-catering. International tourists arrived, but that dropped by 6%, causing a loss of €685 million to the economy. The Minister for tourism is aiming to increase our annual growth in tourism by 7%. That is a lot of numbers.

In April 2025, the ESRI report found that short-term let units on online platforms were previously selfcatering units already operating in the market. The visitor spend is very important to rural Ireland. For every €25 spent on a self-catering bed, €75 per person per day is spent in the locality in shops, restaurants, cafés, pubs, etc. For example, there is a small business called Cottages for Couples in Skibbereen. It generates €2 million per year to the local economy. Similar impact occurs nationwide in villages. Our offshore islands are very important where hotels are not viable, and self-catering is often the only option of accommodation. This industry has been the cornerstone of Ireland's tourism for generations and remains vital to its survival. I recall as a child travelling to the Aran Islands and going self-catering in the 1970s.

We support the creation of a register. Accurate data is essential. Our concern relates to the requirement for planning permission to join the register or more specifically the building regulations that will be attached to that planning. I will hand over to our chairperson, Mr. Derek Keogh.

Let me start with a quote from the Minister for tourism, Deputy Peter Burke, that should be to the foremost in everyone’s minds when scrutinising the Bill, "We want every community, from urban centres to rural heartlands, to benefit from tourism’s growth and ensure Ireland is the best location to visit in Europe." The problem with the current Bill is that the planning stipulation, or more specifically the enforcement of current building regulations, will close down rural tourism. The self-catering sector is the backbone of Irish tourism. It did not cause the housing crisis and neither is it the solution. Planning departments, which are currently understaffed by 550 people, are ill-equipped to cater for an influx of applications should they arise, and any volume of applications will only detract local planners from the more serious matters at hand. In addition, the timeframe to have all of the above in place before 20 May 2026 is equally unachievable.

Many of the alleged 35,400 short-term lets include properties that will never be suitable for the long-term rental market for a variety of reasons, including location, size of the property, the quirky nature of the tourist offering such as shepherds' huts, the inability to provide the facilities required by HAP as a long-term let, personal or family use, or converted outhouses or garages on the grounds of a person’s principal private residence. None of these will ever go into long-term market but equally will struggle to comply with building regulations attached by going through the current planning process. These properties were never going to be suitable for the long-term market but will be lost forever to the tourist stock.

The national quality assurance framework, NQAF, is Fáilte Ireland's quality assurance mark granted to approved self-catering properties throughout Ireland. A total of 78% of these are located outside of the five main cities. There were 4,727 properties which held this mark at the latest figures issued in June 2025. These are the people who offer the céad míle fáilte on our nation’s behalf. These are people who open up their homes and hearts to welcome visitors. These are the people who meet and greet their guests. These are the people who are the genuine tourist accommodation providers and are already quality approved by a State body. They are not urban landlords, and they deserve the recognition for their efforts.

I appreciate that the housing crisis is the number one issue facing the current Government. The Irish Self Catering Federation, ISCF, has been calling for the implementation of the register for years to regulate the sector. I repeat that the self-catering sector is the backbone of Irish tourism. It did not cause the housing crisis, and neither is it the solution. The Minister also said that we need to support SMEs so that the burden of doing business is not disproportionate. The Bill require all short-term rentals to be planning compliant prior to the introduction of the register in three months’ time. That is before 20 May 2026. Officials have advised us that a simple a change of use will be treated as a new planning application but have not yet produced planning guidelines, a national planning statement or decoupled short-term rentals from rent pressure zones.

The cost associated with requiring any property, particularly a pre-1963 building, to comply with current day building regulations will be an insurmountable barrier for existing SMEs to continue operating. A recent cost of complying with current building regulations, without any structural changes, was €125,000. The OTA Airbnb has previously stated that the average income of their hosts in this region is €9,000 per annum. The only practical viable solution within the stipulated timeframes continues to be the introduction of exemptions, whether that be by population size, property location, quality assurance, grandfather rule, extending the bed and breakfast exemption to short-term rentals on the principal private residence, and farm diversification projects.

Going forward, new entrants to the market will have to comply with current legislation. On this basis, I propose the following exemptions to apply within the current planning system. They are easy to comprehend and will deliver a fair and reasonable result for all concerned. The Government has already indicated that the default position is that existing tourist accommodation providers in areas with a population under 20,000 as per Central Statistics Office, CSO, mapping will have two years to regularise their planning status. In the national planning framework, we propose the following: exemption from any planning requirement for change of use to be granted for existing tourist accommodation providers in areas with a population under 20,000 as per the CSO mapping; exemption from any planning requirement for change of use under the grandfather rule for existing properties operating over seven years; exemption from any planning requirement for change of use for any NQAF properties, whether that be with ISCF or Fáilte Ireland; and exemption from any planning requirement for change of use for a short-term rental on the same folio as a person's principal private residence. Extend the bed and breakfast use that is exempt under present planning regulations, Article 10(4), to all short-term rentals on lands attached to a person's principal private residence. On farming diversification and regenerative tourism, give farmers and agritourism an exemption from planning when offering self-catering on properties and-or farm buildings located on their farm. Grant exemptions up until the end of December 2028 to facilitate regenerative tourism to any property owner who brings existing structures on land back into use in a rural area.

Thatched houses should be exempt from planning for use as short-term rentals if they already exist as a thatched cottage. Regarding heritage properties, from small houses to large castles, treating them under the same planning regime as high-density, high-turnover city rentals threatens their viability and does not support balanced regional development. Once the councils have a listing of all the short-term rentals from the register, they can then evaluate any applications against criteria laid out in planning guidelines. We propose that in designated areas and large urban areas, tourist quarters be created to facilitate the existing demand in larger cities.

These changes cannot be implemented overnight. It is important to take a measured approach. While we support the introduction of the register as required by EU law by May 2026, we strongly recommend allowing a two-year grace period. This period would enable the necessary fine-tuning to address the complexities involved. A one-size-fits-all approach is not feasible, and additional time is essential to avoid the risk of significant policy errors. We encourage the committee to incorporate the exemptions into its recommendations to ensure that the twin goals of protecting rural tourism and delivering housing in large urban areas can both occur. The ability to legislate for this is in the hands of the members of the committee.

Thank you all for your opening statements. We now proceed to members for their contributions, questions and answers.

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. They were very enlightening on the upcoming situation. With good policy comes compromise in order that the Department looks at what the witnesses said and then looks at the housing crisis we have in Ireland at the moment. I agree with most of the witnesses' statements with regard to short-term lets. I feel the Department has let us down because the planning statement is not out. The witnesses have not had a good look at what they are facing on 20 May. It is good news, though, that people will have two years from that date to get their planning in order. As long as a person can say they are going to comply with planning regulations, they have two years to get sorted.

I will ask a couple of questions and I would appreciate concise replies. My first question is to the representatives of Booking.com. This company probably has the most comprehensive data on short-term letting in the country. Will it commit to providing property-level data to the State in order that policy makers can determine how many short term-lets were previously part of long-term housing stock? It is very important for us to know that information. The witness said that a lot of these short term-lets were not viable or were not being used previously as housing stock. Will the company provide information to the Department which ones were and how many were?

The representatives of Historic Houses of Ireland have argued that many heritage properties are unsuitable for long-term residential use. Who should determine whether these houses are suitable or not? Should it be the property owners or the planning authorities? What objective criteria should apply in that situation?

The Irish Self-Catering Federation is proposing a wide range of exemptions. Taken together, what proportion of the current short-term rental market would remain fully subject to planning requirements? At the end of the day, we really need to be able to get a handle on what is happening here. Even taking the housing crisis out of the situation, we need to be able to look at planning for these short-term lets. We have to have regulation in some shape or form because we cannot just let it happen willy-nilly. It has to be regulated, whether that be for fire or health and safety. We will start with Ms MacConnacher from Booking.com.

It is probably worth mentioning here that there is a single digital entry point which is part of the EU legislation. Within this, Booking.com and other platforms have committed to providing data. Every month we will be providing specific addresses of units that are on our site. This will comprise activity data per unit, the number of nights rented, guests who were there, as well as the country of residence of each guest. We will be displaying a registration number. We are already working with Fáilte Ireland on this and we have a meeting with its representatives tomorrow on the design of the registration scheme and how we transmit data between them. We have already committed to this and we have been working very closely with the EU Commission and others to make sure that it works. We will then be providing data on what things look like from here. I think the Deputy's question referred to how many properties we currently have. Is that correct?

No, I did not ask that. My question was on properties that were previously housing stock.

This is based on some data that I think Ms Ní Mhurchú mentioned in her opening statement. We are also members of the Irish Self Catering Federation and we share the information its members have that they have been self-catering properties before. Many of these properties were never long-term rentals. At the end of the day, we do not really have that clear data and that is at the heart of all of this. It was a statement that, unfortunately, I did not come back with clear data on, but I think we do need to have a look. Once we have that registration scheme in place, once we have that single digital entry point, we will then be able to look at what the data looks like from that point.

I suppose it would have to come from the planning authorities, but there seems to be a delay. In a conversation with representatives of Fáilte Ireland, we asked about whether the questions on the registration form were going to ask if people had planning permission and did they intend to apply for planning permission. At the moment it is a self-declaration of having planning permission, and being fire and safety compliant.

In many cases people who own heritage houses who are doing short-term lets are not doing it to make a fortune. They are doing it to survive and to help with the upkeep of the house. We have to make sure this continues and we have to do the planning regulations in such a way that this is allowed to happen. Obviously, the safety concerns have to be taken into consideration. I am 100% behind this. We have to remember that we do not want to see unintended consequences as a result of this. All of these rural towns and villages around the country are hugely affected by the amount of tourism they get. If we stopped that, it would affect the small shops, delis and restaurants. We need to make sure they are looked after and that we do not have these unintended consequences where they close up and all of a sudden communities die as a result.

I completely agree. Tourism accounts for such a huge part of keeping our member houses going.

I will have stop Mr. Emmet because I want to get on to the next question.

A total of 97.6% of our members are rural-based. On the question about planning, the key thing is that fire regulations are different from planning regulations. The exemption we are looking for is in the planning process and that can be incorporated into the national planning statement. We do accept that a building has to completely comply with fire regulations. That has to be a given. However, we have to remember these are single houses. It is a bit like the Deputy's own house or it might be a converted outhouse, the exact same scenario. Again, the requirements there would not be the same as if it had to go for commercial planning where it was a massive building. It applies to an actual house or smaller.

It is now the middle of February, it is due to come in on 20 May and the witnesses do not have the national planning statement in order to be able to work around it to see what would happen. I really feel that we should be pushing out the start date of this. That is my recommendation.

I thank the witnesses for their submissions and for attending the committee today. We have to get this into context. Across Europe, everybody is looking at short-term lets and the effect they are having on cities and rural towns and communities in terms of the provision of housing. I have a couple of really stark statistics. The number of bed and breakfast premises has dropped by 80% in the last couple of decades.

That is a significant drop. It is massive. This correlates with an increase in the number of short-term lets. What do we talk about? We are talking about short-term lets. We are talking about homes. They were built as homes for people to live in. They were not built for the tourist industry. There are specific units that have been built. I am talking particularly about the heritage end of things. Serious accommodations are needed in that regard. I have visited quite a lot of these properties. It is something I love to do. You can see it is about maintaining the original property. Raising income to maintain it is really important. However, to put this in context, 90% of short-term lets are for the full use of what would have been family homes or apartments. In the context of a housing crisis, that is not acceptable. It cannot be tolerated. I am glad that all of the witnesses acknowledged that there is a housing crisis. I hope the legislation that is being brought in will go some way towards dealing with the housing crisis and the thousands of units that are being used for short-term lets when they should be family homes.

I will ask a couple of questions. What exactly do the witnesses mean by "self-catering units"? We know what short-term lets are, that is, full family homes, but I am not 100% sure on what "self-catering units" means. I used to go to Butlin's at Mosney. We were in self-catering units. That was completely-----

Self-catering is anything you rent for the short term. It could be anything from a house to a glamping pod. It could be a yurt. To put it simply, as far as the legislation is concerned, it is anything with a roof.

With regard to heritage units, do we know how many such units or houses are rented out?

From our recent survey, 50% of members are open to the public as tourist accommodation. We have over 2,000 bed spaces. I would have to look into the number of units. I can come back to the Deputy on that.

With regard to the legislation, it is disappointing that we do not have full clarity. I do not support pushing it out because it would just result in further delay in bringing these units back into use as family homes. It is really important that we move on this as quickly as we possibly can. We all have constituency offices. We deal with people who are becoming homeless every single day. It is morally wrong that homes that were built for people to live in under long-term leases are being rented out on the market.

I visited a couple of the islands recently. One thing is really stark when you drive down the country. This is where I am a little bit confused. I have met people on the islands who talk about the housing crisis on those islands and how difficult it is to get accommodation for sons, daughters, aunts and uncles, people who want to come home to live on the islands. Despite this, I drive past empty unit after empty unit. They are holiday lets that are empty for six, seven or eight months of the year. How do we ensure a tourism market while also allowing people to live on the islands? The drop in the number of bed and breakfast providers is a significant issue. How do we do that? The witnesses have all said that we need exemptions. We have to be very careful that exemptions are not used as Trojan horses, as my colleague Deputy Eoin Ó Broin has put it, to enable very big companies to sneak things through despite the legislation. How do we ensure we have a tourism industry, which is really important and something I use regularly, while also ensuring exemptions are not used as a Trojan horse to enable very large companies to abuse the system?

We are not talking about large companies. We are talking about mom-and-pop businesses all over rural Ireland. We are not talking about vulture funds coming in to buy up these properties. There is a problem. I am from a Gaeltacht myself and there is a problem with planning going back years. You cannot get planning in your own local area. That has been a serious problem. That does not mean we should close down self-catering accommodation. What has not been said here yet today is that a lot of self-catering properties are no longer in the industry. Loads of them were built in the eighties and nineties. Name any coastal village in Ireland and tonnes of them will have been built there. They are now either lived in permanently or under council contracts. Over 21,000 are under accommodation recognition payment contracts. They are no longer in the tourism offering. There has been a serious drop in the number of such properties, even in the last five years.

I appreciate Ms Ní Mhurchú's answer and thank her very much for it. Will the witnesses explain something to me? If a person does not get planning permission for a short-term let, why would that property not come back into the long-term rental market? Are the witnesses stating that they will just be left to rot and that people who have equity in a property will just leave it? It makes no sense to me.

In an historic house context, the business model we operate is a whole-house takeover. Groups come in from America and rent a private house. That would include some of the ancillary properties on the estate.

I can understand the historic-----

They could-----

I apologise again. We are very limited on time. I understand the case of historic and heritage houses. I get that. I completely understand. I am not including them. I am including individual units that were built as family homes.

I will answer this one very quickly because we are over time. If a Dublin person has a holiday home, such as those the Deputy passes on his way down to the country, and uses it for one night, it cannot go into the long-term let market because of the legislation on the six-year lease. Therefore, any family use, even for one night, means it cannot go back in. It is either one or the other.

I thank the witnesses very much for coming in. We have spent a lot of time on this. We sat here in private session last week and we spent two and a half hours going to and fro with the Departments responsible for tourism, planning and housing. Lots of things were mentioned. There was mention of ticking a box to say that your planning permission is fine. We were using phrases like "planning immune". We really were bombarded. As a business owner, if I had 86 days to figure out what was going to happen, I would not be very comfortable and that is what the witnesses have. They have 86 days and still do not know what is happening because we do not have the planning guidelines. Last week, when we spoke to the Department, we mentioned the two years and not having a cliff edge. The Department officials responded that this has been coming for a long time and that owners should have been prepared before now. I welcome the witnesses' answers on that.

The representative of Booking.com mentioned that it is important that measures are based on reliable data. Does she think we are using reliable data? How many of the company's members does she expect to leave? I have a question for the ISCF. How can the granting of exemptions both protect rural tourism and deliver on housing?

I totally hear Mr. Emmet and I take his point on behalf of Historic Houses of Ireland. However, again, when we spoke to the Department last week, it was almost a case of "but, what if?" My colleague Senator McCormack alluded to this earlier on. It is a question of what if something happens in a property when it does not meet the basic building regulations. It is the "what if" as regards fire regulations and health and safety. I know the witnesses will say there is no question about that and that they will ensure everything necessary is done.

I have personally been inundated with correspondence. I suppose that is because I am in the leisure industry myself. I have said on the public record that I totally feel what those in the industry are going through. I do feel it is a cliff edge. I will go back to the fact that they only have 86 days to get this sorted. To go back to the islands, which Deputy Donnelly has mentioned, there seems to be a good bit of dereliction on the islands. We should probably sort out dereliction on the islands to get housing stock back into use. I have letters from people on Inishmore and the Aran Islands. Self-catering accommodation is a massive source of tourism revenue on the islands. I just wanted to put that on the record as well.

I will come to the data first. At the moment, as Ms Ní Mhurchú mentioned, we provide data to Eurostat under a non-disclosure agreement, as do other platforms. This data is aggregated so there will be duplication. Many operators will list across multiple platforms to maximise occupancy across the year, as well as having direct bookings and so on, so that will not give a full picture. The Department of tourism was also screen scraping, that is, taking publicly available data, looking at the platforms only. While we can provide information on what we have - we have between 9,500 and 10,000 properties listed-----

I asked this question last week. Would Ms MacConnacher prefer to see the register go up, everyone put their information there, the data taken and one year later that we come back to it? I take Deputy Donnelly's point about the housing crisis as well. Is that what she would prefer to see, so that the proper data comes back?

Exactly, this is what we have been pushing for for a long time. The whole industry has been pushing for this. Having reliable data will only come through the registration scheme.

It is difficult to say how many we expect to leave because the planning statement still has not been published. We do not know what will apply. Equally, I found this across different parts of the UK which have brought in different licensing schemes, Scotland, for example. There is one coming through in Wales. England is bringing in a registration scheme. Some people will come under planning rules but, equally, some people will leave the market due to misinformation or because they are worried they will not be caught up in it, particularly with the 86 days. There is a lot of panic that they do not know what they will have to do.

On the question the Senator asked, the focus when the Bill was drawn up - it is a tourism Bill, but housing is behind it - was on delivering more houses in urban areas, which we all 100% agree with. However, as it is a tourism Bill, the focus should have been on rural tourism. If the position were to protect rural tourism, by default the by-product would be that more houses would come back into urban areas in particular. I will give an example of that. One of the exemptions we put on the list was for the national quality assurance framework, NQAF. Some 4,727 properties, or 13% of the overall stock of 35,400 beds, could potentially qualify for that. Of that, when I drive down through the sums, 15% of the bed stock, which is what was mentioned in a Fáilte Ireland report, is in Dublin. As 15% of 35,400 is 5,310, potentially 5,310 beds will come back. Of the 4,727 properties which hold NQAF certification, which says they are the best of what is out there - these are the ones that put themselves forward to be examined, say they are proud of what they are and ask to be assessed - only 133 are in Dublin. That is 2.5%.

What I am saying is that if an exemption was given to the NQAF properties, for example, then 97.5% of it would be targeted at rural Ireland. When we go through the other exemptions we have, such as the one attached to the principal private residence, PPR, that is targeted at rural areas. In that regard, I do not know anyone in Dublin who is lucky enough to have an outhouse, so that will not happen in Dublin and large city centres. That is the focus of what I am saying. If we focus on rural tourism and protect it as the default position, because it is what people come to Ireland to visit and what Ireland is all about, the by-product will be that all the houses Deputy Donnelly is looking for in Dublin will fall away because they will not be able to comply with any of these regulations. That would protect rural tourism and make a big dent in the housing crisis in large urban areas.

Both can be done, but when the Bill was set up, the focus was purely on throwing everyone out and letting them re-apply, when really it should have been on protecting what we have that is good and the by-product would be getting houses back in the large cities. I hope that answers the question. I apologise for hogging the time.

I will now take my slot. I spoke at length about the concerns I have coming from a tourist town. I come from Killeagh, in the Youghal area of east Cork. As the committee has spoken about previously, we lost a substantial amount of our tourist accommodation to the International Protection Accommodation Service, IPAS, with the sale of the Quality Hotel, which removed about 60% of Youghal's tourist accommodation. What is left is a lot of people involved in short-term letting - in Airbnb businesses and so on. That letting is important, particularly for events that come to Youghal as a coastal town, such as the Ironman competition and other things that happen in the area. It is a critical part of what is being offered. With the proposed changes as regards population, from 10,000 to 20,000, those concerns to some degree have been alleviated, but I will ask specifically about the planning process. Will the Irish Self-Catering Federation guide me through its concerns about the planning process, having to apply for planning permission and what that means in terms of cost and the burden it will place on people? As a TD and Cathaoirleach of this committee, I express my concern about what this means for local authorities, with the enormous burden of paperwork it will put on them in the situation where people who apply for planning retention may get rejected after spending €10,000 to €15,000, if not more, on the different reports required to go through the process.

There are two concerns about planning and the costs associated with. One is - and it might be scaremongering - about what level of planning and building regulations will be required. Will it be deemed to be a brand new application, as suggested by Department officials? If that is the case, it is bells and whistles and it has to be an A-rated building. If that is the case, it will cost €125,000 before people can even submit a planning application. We can all agree that is insane. I hope common sense will apply when it comes around. It is different for health and safety and fire regulations. That is a different kettle of fish. That is basic and should be a given.

Assuming that is put aside, the second concern is the cost of applying. We have been told it will be a simple change of use application. That is a few hundred quid or €1,000 and it is done. What we have been hearing back from getting quotes from different county councils is anywhere from €7,000 to €20,000. For the OTA, Airbnb, the average earnings of their hosts are only €9,000 per year. When this is a supplementary family income, will people give up two years of salary on maybe getting planning permission? They are real life concerns. These are people's pensions and college funds. That is why people are doing it. The Government is asking for that to be thrown on the roulette wheel effectively. They are the concerns we have about the costs.

The other concern is what type of use will be given. There is a grave concern about commercial use being attached to it, especially where it is an outhouse of a building because people will then have a mixed use PPR. That means if someone wants to buy the property, AIB or Bank of Ireland will not give the prospective purchaser a mortgage because it is a mixed use property.

There are many nuances to this and that is why we have grave concerns about it. Clarity is what we need and that is what we still do not have.

To add to that, planning came in in 1963 so there are pre-1963 properties, which applies to a lot of the heritage houses, and post-1963 properties. My house was built in 1967. The regulations then were not the same as those in place now. There has been a requirement for planning since 2019, but that regulation was not in place when I set up my business. Therefore, it has an effect. In other words, this is a retrospective demand that I get planning permission. Perhaps I can pass over to Mr. O'Keeffe who is online and also has an older property.

My time is quite limited so I might come back to Mr. O'Keeffe if I have time. I apologise to him. I want to ask a question of Historic Houses of Ireland.

It also has concerns in relation to planning. Mr. Green is very welcome. It is great to see a constituent here.

I thank the Cathaoirleach.

I just want to give him an opportunity to express his concerns on the planning side.

I would like to share with the committee a very real, practical example which I received from a member who lives in the midlands and owns a significant historic house. He said that he was going to seek planning for change of use for a derelict garden house in the walled gardens. The building has become derelict as the cost of renovation as a protected structure does not make it viable as a house for the rental market. The cost of renovation would be €400,000 and the rent would give a return on this of less than 4.5%. As such, the rent would not meet the interest payments. Rents for protected structures are significantly lower than new builds because they cost more to live in, with single glazing and draughty chimneys. Thus, the only way to fund the restoration of old buildings is if they generate a higher income, and this can be done from short-term rentals. We can add to that, that the banks have refused to finance this family to fund the restoration as the building, on completion, will not conform to its green energy guidelines. Thus, again, the only way to save old buildings is for them to generate high income and to make restoration a viable option.

As regards planning permission, while the member has applied for planning permission for a change of use and to widen two doorways to make the downstairs wheelchair accessible, the procedure of applying for the planning requires the entire gamut of surveys to be completed. To date, it has cost over €20,000 for the gardener's house planning. There is a further request for €150,000 worth of reports that insist they employ a conservation architect to widen two doors and also to do interior design plans and a survey on a greenhouse that is not even part of the planning application. This is just an example of how the planning is not working or fit for purpose.

Mr. Green has spelled it out pretty clearly. It is unfortunate that the time is limited, so I apologise to Mr. O'Keeffe, who is online. We will come back to him in the second round. I thank Mr. Green for the information. It is great to see him from Ballyvolane House in Castlelyons. It is a lovely part of the world. I urge people to go and visit it if they get the chance.

I thank the Chair.

We will move on to the Fine Gael slot. I call the Leas-Chathaoirleach, Deputy Brennan.

I thank everybody for attending. I am very interested in the conversation so far. I agree with an awful lot of what Deputy Donnelly said. We have a housing crisis and we need to get more houses back in the system, but we also need a balance. Solving the housing crisis should not be done to the detriment of rural tourism.

I come from a tourism background. I know what tourism is doing to rural Ireland and the benefits it brings. It does not matter what we say, short-term letting is a key part of rural tourism. When we consider employment, we have people making beds, cutting grass, doing up heritage buildings, suppliers providing sheets, clothes, fruit or welcome gifts. I have seen it at first hand. The key point for me is what they are giving back to the local economy. It is huge.

I was in the little village of Shillelagh on Monday visiting a school. I pulled into a shop and there were people sitting in pods. It is a pub with three or four pods. They were thinking outside the box and they put the pods in. It is having an effect on the village and the shop owner. When I left they said that what Kennys have done in that little place is a blessing to them, especially in the winter months. Maintenance guys are there.

Tourism is so important. I had a case of a neighbour whose child was very quiet and introverted. That child was put on a tourism project one summer and the child was transformed. We simply cannot put a price on getting people to interact with tourists in their own villages and towns. I am totally respectful of what Deputy Donnelly says but there must be a balance as well. The housing crisis cannot be solved to the detriment of tourism.

I am astounded that the key figures are not out. Has the figure of 20,000 people been confirmed? There was great fanfare last week, but from what I gather, it has not been confirmed to the people sitting behind us. Have we got confirmation on the two-year extension in planning? No. Do we know when the national planning statement will be out? No. A very clear message is coming out of the presentation, which has been very worthwhile.

The fourth key point is where this is in terms of cost for somebody to stay in the business. I keep going back to this point. Whether we talk about hotels or short lets, if we lose them from a village, it is only then that we will realise the effect it is going to have on tourism. I am seriously concerned.

During my canvass, I went around and knocked on an awful lot of doors. I keep going back to Deputy Donnelly because he made some very relevant points. I agree that there are an awful lot of empty properties but I am firmly of the opinion that they are not being used at all. They are literally there and a family that has gone abroad has left it as an investment. As a previous speaker said, that should be tackled. We should look at the houses from the point of view of dereliction. Not every case is simple. There are issues but, overall, what we need as a committee going forward is to look at balance. I will let the witnesses respond to a couple of those points.

I will come back in on a few points. I thank Deputy Brennan for what he said. There are so many nuances within the EU short-term rental regulation, STRR. From our side of it, it is not a case of one size fits all. The example the Deputy gave was that orders could be made against derelict houses that have been empty for a large proportion of the year. There are Irish people abroad, in particular in America, who are buying up properties. Their intention is to return to Ireland. In the interim, what they are doing is they might come home for three weeks and do work themselves. We have Ms Argue online. What they do then is let the properties out on their behalf so they are being used and money is going back into communities. In their heads, it is their retirement plan from America. That is one example.

I will speak about the impact this has on local villages. In our local village the pubs are shut. We are the ones that are bringing business into the village. Since Covid, we have not had a local pub. Again, in terms of the actual economy, the effect is not just locally, which the Deputy hinted at, but also nationally, and in the amount of tax. Deputy Brennan is from a hotel background himself. If a hotel makes €100 a year in profit on a room, and an STR makes €100 profit on a room, what happens is that because a hotel is classed as a big business, it would pay 12.5% tax on it while the likes of me pays 50%, because it is coming out of PAYE. We are paying an effective tax rate of four times more than hotels on the same profit. They are just a few small points. At times, people do not realise these things, but they emerge when you start delving in. We could keep talking for hours if the committee wants and we can keep delving, as there are so many different angles there.

I agree. Few if any hotels will be built in the next five years unless there is a drastic change in rural Ireland.

Yes.

Hotels have also been given to IPAS. If we lose our short-term lettings on top of those two factors, it is going to devastate rural Ireland.

I agree with the Deputy.

A balance is needed. We need houses back in the system but we have to be very careful about how it is done. I am firmly of the opinion that it should not be rushed. We have waited long enough for this but let us get it right.

We have been working on the national planning statement since just before Christmas. Everybody said that we should not worry about it, that it is going to be absolutely fine. That happened in January but as time has gone on, there does not seem to be a deadline for the national planning statement. I heard anecdotally that it could be after Easter or 6 May, which gives two weeks to people.

Our members include those who have specialist aspects, so they had no chance of being able to register in time for 20 May.

I thank the witnesses.

I hope I did not sound like I do not support rural tourism. I go to every Dublin GAA match. We travel away. I have been to every county in Ireland. Rural tourism is extremely important. We must make sure that we have a balance between rural tourism and short-term lets. Rural tourism is not just about short-term lets. We talked about IPAS hotels and hotels closing all over the country.

Approximately 80% of B and Bs have closed in the last couple of decades. I would say there is a correlation between short-term lets and the closure of hotels and B and Bs, but nobody is talking about that.

Point made and received.

I thank all the witnesses for joining us. I come from a small village that has recently seen shops close and reopen. There are constant questions about the viability of small businesses in rural areas. The loss of one business can have a significant impact. We need to try to bring certainty and clarity at this stage. My first question relates to planning. I open this to any of the witnesses. Where do people stand on the seven-year rule on planning, maybe from a heritage perspective? Are they accepting that because they have been around for long enough and have been doing it for a considerable period of time, they are exempt from planning?

There is a wide array of opinions from our membership. The grandfather rule is interesting but there is no clear guidance on it. People within our membership want to be able to apply and want to start conservation projects that could bring short-term rentals within their curtilage. However, without any guidance, they have been waiting for the planning statement to give them their guidance. The seven-year rule has been floating around a lot but who knows if it will be in the national planning statement.

On planning at a broader level, where do the members of Historic Houses of Ireland sit, considering regulations on disability access, fire safety and so on?

Accessibility is really important to our members. We get occasional requests from our members relating to fire safety where a new door has been put into a heritage property in order for it to be fire compliant but where it has cost them a huge amount and there may have been a better way of doing that while keeping within-----

Does Mr. Emmett have any figures or statistics on planning compliance, fire compliance and accessibility compliance across the historic houses stock?

We would not, but-----

As long as it is done in a sensitive way that is not taking away from the heritage nature of the building in which we are offering a very authentic Irish travel experience-----

Across the broader self-catering-----

Perhaps I could answer that. As far as disability access is concerned, in the case of most of the properties that were built in the eighties and nineties, where a certain percentage of any group schemes had to have disability access, either they have been sold individually or they have been bought by organisations that use them for disabled people permanently.

Does Ms Ní Mhurchú have any figures or statistics related to planning, fire safety and accessibility compliance, and the different strands?

Where we do the quality assurance on our members, everybody has to meet fire safety standards.

Therefore, every short-term let in the country right now should have fire safety compliance.

No, just those that are under the national quality assurance framework. That is managed by either Fáilte Ireland or us.

There is obviously a cost to ensure compliance. Are there any figures on annual turnover? Mr. Keogh mentioned the taxation constraints that are there. Has the federation done any studies on the different bands of turnover versus the percentages among its members?

We do not have that.

What is the average turnover for a member?

The average turnover is in the region of €25,000 to €30,000.

One of the previous speakers said that compliance would cost between €7,000 and €20,000. Is that correct? What will happen if there is a liability of €7,000 to €20,000 to comply and an annual turnover of €20,000 to €25,000?

People will not apply.

What will happen to this stock?

This is the million-dollar question and we do not have answers. The problem is that everyone is unique. There are various different strands of it.

Has the federation done any research to get a sense of what people are thinking?

We have asked members for their views. One of the problems members have is that if they apply for planning, they are given planning as an STR. Their house is then losing about 20% to 25% in value because someone buying a property with an STR on it cannot get a mortgage on it. A lot of people are worried about that aspect as well.

Have banks actively refused short-term rentals?

Yes.

Does Ms Ní Mhurchú have any numbers on it?

I do not have any numbers on it.

Regarding enforcement, if this comes in in May or at some other time, how will Booking.com or other larger platforms implement this or enforce it on a stronger level?

I mentioned earlier that we are working with Fáilte Ireland on the register and how we will report back under that single digital entry point. We will then be complying under the overarching EU regulation for reporting back. We will be sharing registration numbers. We are actively working with Fáilte Ireland to make sure we comply with what is required of us. However, we are talking here about a Bill that we have not yet seen. We are very much reliant on seeing the detail of that legislation and then seeing how we can comply in communicating with the Department to make sure it is aware of any challenges we might have with that final wording.

Considering how large a multinational Booking.com is and considering this affects providers with a turnover of €20,000 to €25,000, has the Irish Self-Catering Federation reached out to colleagues around the world to get examples of what we should and should not have in this legislation compared with other countries?

We definitely need the transition period that we discussed before.

Can Ms MacConnacher give us an example of a country where this has been carried out?

I also cover the UK and I am looking at the English registration that will come through this year. There will be a transition period to allow people to be able to comply. At the minute, it is incredibly difficult that people are given two weeks potentially to comply when they have not even seen the register, when it is not even known what is under the planning, because we do not know what we are dealing with. Ultimately, we can make sure we have all the things on our platform to make sure people can input that information, but other jurisdictions have a transition period. What Ireland is doing, by having an incredibly short period in which to do things, is very unusual.

What would Ms MacConnacher consider to be a realistic or fair transition period to get the whole sector 100% compliant?

I would say between nine months and a year to allow that transition.

To have everyone fully compliant with planning, fire, disability-----

Again, we do not know what the planning requirements are. However, in order to get registration numbers, assuming the legislation requires planning, it would be optimal for those people who are going to register to have nine months to 12 months to allow them to input all the relevant information.

I thank the witnesses for being here today. Their submissions are critical to the legislation that is going to come about. It is hard to believe that we are here in the final session of the pre-legislative scrutiny and we still do not have the planning guidelines. The committee is very limited in what we can do in order to get this right and it is important that we get it right. We are now 12 weeks away. I wish to ask all the groups about their individual engagement with the Government on a transition period. I will start with Ms Ní Mhurchú.

I have had engagement with the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, the Department of housing and Fáilte Ireland. I attend meetings with Fáilte Ireland as part of the tourism forum. The problem for us is that we have still have neither sight nor sound of the legislation or the register details. My colleague Lisa Argue, who is appearing online, is an agent. She has to change her website and she does not even know how many digits there are in the registration number; none of us does. We have been advised that we will be given guidelines on this but to date no guidelines have come across. It is very difficult to advise members what to do when we have not seen the legislation or even the detail of the register.

I can understand the predicament they are in.

Has Ms MacConnacher had engagement with the Department? In the absence of these guidelines, is she getting any indications?

Yes, I attended a meeting two or three weeks ago, alongside Airbnb, Expedia, Vrbo and EU Travel Tech, where we talked about the concerns we have. As Ms Ní Mhurchú said, we do not have the details or the text of the legislation. We have been given assurances it will follow the EU short-term rental regulation but it is difficult to know without seeing the detail. As I mentioned, we are meeting with Fáilte Ireland tomorrow. I have been in my role with Booking.com since 2022. I have engaged with the Departments of housing and tourism throughout that time. In fact, two days ago, it was three years to the day since I met with Fáilte Ireland and the two Departments, alongside other platforms, to discuss the legislation that was brought forward in 2023. It did not make it through because that was just before the EU STR legislation came into place. We have been actively engaged throughout that period. We are actively trying to find out the detail of the Bill.

What is Ms MacConnacher's advice to her members as of today? People will be looking to her for guidance. Has she noticed any differences in terms of the number of bookings and so on?

At the moment, it is very unclear as to how things will look. We are talking about hypothetical scenarios. Whether the changes have reached guests is unknown at the minute.

Does Ms MacConnacher foresee a situation where Booking.com would have to block listings for accommodation?

It is quite difficult to know. We want to ensure we have compliant listings on our platform, which we already do. That is already happening in advance of any legislative changes. I do not think it will come to us ceasing to list in Ireland but we want to make sure we have the single digital entry point up and running and that we can provide the details that come under it.

Booking.com operates in many cities globally that already have some form of restriction in terms of regulating short-term lets. Does the company have any data on those locations that can be shared with us?

I will certainly look into that after this meeting to see whether we can share some details.

It is very important that we can measure in some way what the impact of the legislation might be.

We are calling for an evidence base to ensure that whatever comes out of legislation is based on clear evidence of actual numbers. That is why we have called for this registration.

In the past few weeks, we have had the change in the population threshold from 10,000 to 20,000. I understand the witnesses have not yet had notification of that. Our fear is that investors will buy up residential properties that were built for hard-working families to buy or rent. What does Mr. Keogh think we can do to prevent that from happening?

Again, this is where the exemption lists would apply. If the NQAF sets the standard for what is a genuine tourist accommodation provider, that will catch such operators. It is also for existing providers. In other words, it will prevent this type of thing from going forward. If the vulture funds or whatever we want to call the big boys come in trying to buy up rural Ireland, they will not be able to because the line in the sand will be already drawn. This is for existing tourist accommodation providers and the exemptions apply to them. If we cannot even get planned exemptions within the next 80 days, they will not be able to get the sale of a house within those 80 days to get ahead of the curve. It is about looking after the current batch and then going from there.

An email recently came in to Mr. O'Keeffe, who is online, that read:

Greetings. I read that there are new regulations about short-term letting that are effective on May 20th. Is the reservation that we have for the beginning of June going to be affected by this? Do you have your place registered under this law or are you exempted from the law? Thanks, Kevin.

This is a query from a customer coming in from abroad. There have also been bloggers from the US posting about this online. The word is out there that Ireland is shutting down for business.

How do Mr. Keogh and his members answer that question?

We say we are waiting for planning legislation. There has been advice from Department officials, which also went to the committee, that any bookings taken prior to 20 May will be honoured for the rest of the year. However, nobody knows what will happen after that. We believe there will be an extension to allow us at least to see out this year's tourist season. It would be catastrophic nationally if that was not the case. It is all down to planning regulations and having sight of them. The analogy I use all the time is that the tourism industry is being herded towards the Cliffs of Moher and pushed off them. We are being told that by the time we hit the bottom, a safety net will have been put in place to catch us. That, in effect, is what is happening but we do not know what the safety net will comprise. It is just so depressing.

It is absolutely unacceptable.

I thank all the witnesses for joining us and for their engagement on this really important subject. I also thank them and their members for the fabulous service and tourism offering they provide. We recognise that it is really valuable. I say that as a person from Dublin, where there is the lamentable situation of families living in emergency accommodation in hotels and bed and breakfast facilities and tourists staying in family homes. Teachers, gardaí, nurses, shopkeepers and all sorts of front-line workers based in my constituency cannot live in the constituency. The witnesses are aware of all that but it is important we do not lose sight of it.

The European-wide legislation that will come into effect on 20 May supersedes the planning legislation introduced here in 2019. It has been a requirement by law in this country since 2019 to have planning permission to offer short-term lets. I commend the more than 4,700 members of the organisations represented here that have undertaken that process. The NQAF status they have achieved shows it is achievable and that they are determined to provide a quality tourism offering. They are exemplars and they should be commended on that.

Ms MacConnacher said Booking.com has been engaging with the work that is taking place in respect of the European-wide regulation. From her engagement in that work, can she explain the status of the online registration process? We are all used to registering for things online, whether with the credit union, the library, regarding a parking ticket or whatever else. I expect that part to be very straightforward because we can all log onto things on our phone.

The secondary issue is the planning permission. If there are 35,000 short-term lets and only 4,700 have attained the planning permission to date, there is a big challenge there. The committee has heard directly from representatives of the local authorities. As a former local authority member, I am painfully aware of the challenges in securing planning permission. Can Ms MacConnacher share details of the ongoing online registration work?

My colleagues, as well as our legal teams, deal with this on a central basis in terms of short-term lets. They have engaged with other platforms and with the Commission. PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, has created a prototype of what the system will look like. We have engaged on this from the start. It will give an idea of what it could look like for Ireland. Each member state will create its own registration system.

Will it be a European-wide platform?

I am a bit less on top of the detail of the wider EU scheme but I can certainly get back to the Senator with further detail. In terms of the Irish registration scheme, I referred to our work with Fáilte Ireland, which is building the scheme. We are actively involved with the work it is doing. I can get back to the committee with further details.

It would be really helpful for the committee to understand that. If a European-wide platform that is being built will then just be tailored and customised for each of the member states, that is quite a different proposition from each member state creating its own platform from scratch. It would be really helpful for the committee to understand that work or even if Ms MacConnacher could provide us with the contact details for the European lead on the project. It is really important.

I am more than happy to do that.

I like a lot of the exemptions. They make sense. It is a really pragmatic and practical approach to it and I am happy to support most of them. I have two questions. On the proposed grandfather rule of seven years, how would the applicants establish they had been in existence for seven years? On the two-year grace period, how was the two-year time period fixed upon?

On the grandfather rule of seven years, personally speaking, it could be four or five years.

I thought it might have predated the 2019 legal requirement for planning permission.

I think that is where the seven years comes from.

Okay. That makes sense. There is logic there. What about the two-year grace period?

Realistically and operationally, if you stuck in a planning application today for anything, how long will it take for the application to get over the line? If you started from scratch today and said I am going out to engage somebody or whatever to get this planning application over the line, you would do well to get that done in nine to 12 months. We are here today and we are 80 days out. We still do not know what we will apply for or on what basis. On top of that, if there are 35,000 people there that could potentially go into the system, there is a shortage of staff on one side to do it but there will also be a shortage of staff members who prepare the planning applications. How the hell will we get them? It is like when you go to a builder for a quote and he is busy, so he will just say I normally charge around €6,000 for that but since I am busy, I will charge €16,000. If the fecker pays it, he pays it.

That is what we are fearful of as well, which would factor into the cost side of it. This is probably where the €20,000 application price came from in Donegal . These are all live concerns. Realistically, there is too large a volume going through too small a funnel. This is why targeted exemptions of rural areas is a way to alleviate the pressure on the local county councils and get some of the genuine tourism operators over the line because they really are the base. When the county council looks at that, it can say we have so many in Skibbereen, Ballydehob or whatever part of the country you are in, this is a base and we know these are genuine operators. If anyone else comes in with an application, the council can look at it and say hang on a second, we are okay in that area but we have a shortage here or whatever the case may be so it can make informed decisions.

Three years ago, we asked for what we are still asking for now: let the register be launched. Do not attach planning to it. Let us see the full range of everything and all 35,000 operators because the danger is, as it stands now, that if you do not have planning, you cannot apply. Come 20 May - I assume the legislation will change somewhere along the lines - what will happen is nobody can apply because they cannot tick the box. You still will not get a picture-----

Mr. Keogh probably supports the solution whereby people could register, without having planning permission and maybe have a secondary category whereby-----

Exactly. That makes sense because then at least you see what the issue is.

Sorry but I must interrupt for time. I have a couple of quick notes. At 7.30 p.m., we are mandated to take a quick sos to allow our witnesses and officials to use the facilities. I remind committee members we are joined by Ms Lisa Argue online and by Tomás O'Keeffe who is a dairy farmer so no doubt, he is probably watching cows calving at this time of year. I am well used to it from home. They are both very welcome and are joining us online as well.

I thank the Cathaoirleach.

I thank everyone for being here today. We have had many conversations in this committee about this legislation and about all of the proposals for the STR. It is important to always bring it back to what the purpose of this Bill is. I represent Galway East, an area with the Wild Atlantic Way, and we have a huge number of self-catering facilities and an amazing variety of pods, cabins and every sort of development you could imagine. I do not know how many of them have planning permission. That is one side of the story.

The purpose of this STR regulation across Europe is we have an issue and the issue we have is that in our cities and in large towns, there are apartments, terraced houses and semi-detached houses that have gone down this road of short-term letting accommodation when that was not their original purpose or their original intention. They were built as apartments for people to rent. They were built as homes for people to live in and families to live in. That is the intention with the Bill here.

Yes.

There have been unintended risks presented and it is our duty as representatives and a committee to make sure the rural areas I represent are not unnecessarily impacted or do not have undue obligations put on them. Am I right in saying that everybody here agrees with the register and the idea of registering?

Yes.

Am I right in saying that everybody here has massive concerns about having to make a planning declaration on 20 May?

Yes.

The legislation clearly sets out the need to carry out registration. I believe that in the large areas, that planning requirement should be on those properties straight away but in the rural areas I represent, it would be wrong to ask accommodation providers to make a declaration on 20 May, not knowing what the planning statement sets out. Even if you give an undertaking to be compliant within two years, unless you have had time to properly assess that, it would be unfair to ask somebody to comply with something that they do not yet know they can comply with.

I have dealt with local authorities and I know how difficult planning can be. I will separate this out very clearly: no self-catering operator should be operating a pod, a cabin, a room or anything that does not meet building regulations. That is important and that message has to go out clearly to members because your insurance will not hold up. You cannot rent something out and not have it up to standard because if something goes wrong, it will harm the entire tourism industry in Ireland. Why was it not up to building standards? Oh my God, people will say, our terrible Government did not even make people abide by regulations and standards.

Over the past few years, a planning exemption was given to old commercial buildings where you could convert a commercial building into up to nine apartments with no planning permission once you met building guidelines, registered on the building control management system, BCMS, and got it done. Building standards have to be maintained and fire standards have to be maintained. That will come at a cost for some people and some people are already compliant because their buildings were built as compliant and that is fine. That will be important for the industry as a whole.

On the other side of planning, the planning statement must come out and providers must be given time. I have question for Mr. O'Keeffe, who is joining us online. He operates on a family farm and he obviously has a short-term let on that family farm.

Yes.

Without getting too personal about it, what does that mean for the family farm's viability, the operation of the farm and as a tertiary income stream for the farm?

I have a smaller than average dairy farm and I am in derogation so I am very susceptible to a loss of derogation. I know we have kicked that down the road for three years but it will face us at some point. As the Deputy knows, farm income can be very variable. Last year, the short-term rental business probably provided 10% to 15% of our family farm's income. This year, however, the average dairy farmer is forecast to lose €70,000 from his bottom line. This year, it could be 100% of my family farm income and possibly even supporting the farm.

The farm income can be quite variable, depending on what is coming at it from year to year. It is complemented nicely by the short-term rental business because even though the income is modest, it is consistent. It gives us a solid back for our income when the farm does not provide the income we would like it to.

Does Mr. O'Keeffe see more farms and more family farms converting old buildings and cottages and maybe erecting modular units? Is that something that more farmers are going to do in the future?

I was asked by Teagasc to speak at a Teagasc options course in autumn 2024. On the night, almost 100 farmers came to listen to my story. They were planning to do the same. I answered questions to farmers on that night for probably three quarters of an hour and took phone calls for days afterwards. There is a huge interest in it. The interest is mainly because of the size of farms. A great many farms in this country are owned by older farmers and the farms are small in size. These farms are facing a crisis of generational renewal. They need to be viable going forward. Many farmers see diversification as key to the survival of these farms. They see agri-tourism as a very accessible form of farm diversification.

I thank Mr. O'Keeffe. I will make one last point. Fuair mé glaoch ó na hOileáin Árainn le déanaí. Tá daoine an-bhuartha faoin gcaoi a mbeidh cúrsaí pleanála á ndéanamh ar na hoileáin. Níl eagla ar éinne roimh clárú ach tá imní mhór orthu faoi phleanáil. Cad iad na príomhábhair imní atá ag teacht chun cinn ó mhuintir na n-oileán faoi chúrsaí pleanála?

Mar a dúradh níos luaithe, tá fadhb ar na hoileáin le tithíocht. Tá mná a bhfuil gnóthaí beaga acu, cosúil le féin-lóistín, agus tá airgid ag teacht isteach sa cheantar dá bharr. Tá siad buartha. Níl an oiread sin airgid ag teacht isteach, ach is leor é ionas gur féidir leo maireachtáil ar an oileán agus gnó beag a bheith acu féin. Má thugtar an riail pleanála isteach, beidh costas mór i gceist agus ní bheidh an t-airgead acu lena íoc. Is í sin an bhunchloch. Tá cuid dá ngnóthaí ar an mbóthar le cúig nó sé bliana anuas agus ní riail na seacht mbliana déanta acu. Mar sin, beidh muid ag cailleadh tithe ar na hoileáin. Caithfear riail éigin a dhéanamh le haghaidh na n-oileán ionas gur féidir leo dul ar aghaidh leis na gnóthaí atá acu. Tá gá tithíochta ann ach tá géarghá turasóireachta ann chomh maith.

A vote has been called in the Chamber, which is highly unusual at this time of day. To be practical about this, we are going to run out of time. The member still present who wants to speak is Deputy Lawlor. Senator McCarthy is also down to speak, although I have not seen him yet. I also have yet to hear from Deputy Gogarty, so the two of those will take priority. We have six guests who want to contribute. We will return here immediately after the vote and resume. In the event that we do not return, if something happens in the Chamber and it goes beyond 3.10 p.m., the meeting will then conclude. However, we are going to return as soon as we can so members and witnesses are free to use facilities and have a coffee.

I feel as though we are repeating ourselves here. This is God knows what meeting. We have been at it for six months, and we still do not know exactly what is happening. We are going around in circles. Some of it is because it is the tourism and the housing-planning section. Obviously, the Government is trying to crack nuts. We have more than 8,000 full properties on short-stay websites, which are multiple property zones. It is not a holiday home; it is a group or person who owns several of them. Some of them are legitimate. Many of them are rural. There are 20,000 overall.

We are talking about rural areas. Since 2019, we have a situation where the Government has brought in rent-pressure zones. As Mr. Hogan from the Department told us last week and the previous week, anyone in a rent pressure zone should have known since 2019 that they had to apply for compliance. The problem is that even if we get the designation of the 20,000 people - which would cut out a lot of areas and in terms of big tourist towns, we might only have Tralee over the cut - without giving away State secrets what they said at the private meeting was the Government is going to allow a time period for settling from the registration point. Maybe it is not as long as anyone would want but the planning section said it cannot see something that has been used before and on an ongoing basis not getting change of use. The issue is we then have all the other areas around the country that still have to apply for change of use, irrespective of the 20,000 threshold. This is absolute nonsense.

I am totally in favour of the legislation, as I have said at previous committees. In areas like Dublin, Cork, Galway, or anywhere where people are trying to make a quick buck by renting out short-term because the profit margins are higher, if this gets rid of that well and good. The problem is, it is also creating huge difficulties for everyone else. I give the example of holiday homes. As it stands, even under the new rules, if a person has a principal primary residence, they can let it out for 90 days. They do not need change-of-use planning permission. I do not get the logic of why someone who has a holiday home for example, needs to change use when they are already using it as a holiday home. I am not talking about building or fire regulations or general standards, just the actual planning. It seems to be one size fits all. It is the same thing with the farmer who has a building on the land which is never going to be rented out long term, or the family who built a new house and then inherited their granny's house and have been letting it out for years but they have family members come during the summer and Christmas. They rent it out to keep it ticking over. They are never going to rent it out to sort out the housing crisis.

I am making a lot of statements, but I am interested in our witnesses’ feedback. In terms of reiterating the planning section, do our witnesses think there should be a separate planning compliance, or even a derogation, similar to a 90-day stay? To me, if a 90-day stay in a primary residence is planning compliant, I cannot see why 90-day stays in family-run properties, which basically cover the peak seasons and maybe Easter and Christmas, should not be similar.

One person mentioned up to two years. My final question is whether everyone else would be in agreement with that, Is it a two-year register that is intended? In the meantime, can we work out how to separate? If there was a register that said something was a tourism short-term let, surely that allows a period to do an audit to make sure that everyone is actually as they say they are?

Then we can look at the planning issues. Do the witnesses have views on how that should work? Remember, we are talking about tourism in this committee. Trying to deal with the planning and housing is a totally different ball game.

The Deputy said a lot. Much of it is common sense. He referred to the exemption system, which was touched on earlier by Deputy Donnelly. One of the issues relates to the demise of bed and breakfast accommodation and the increase in short-term lettings-----

That is an organic thing.

It is an organic thing, but in relation to planning, that was why what we asked about one of them. Seventy years ago, the Government of the day had an issue with unregistered self-catering and bed and breakfast properties popping up all around the country. The solution was to issue exemptions on the basis of a principal private residence, PPR, of up to four bedrooms. That was there, and that is why we stuck it one. If it is already good for the goose, why is it not good for the gander? That underpins the points the Deputy is making.

Going forward, one of the suggestions we made related to tourist accommodation lets, TALs. The logic of TALs is that there is a specific type of planning. One of my main concerns is that they are saying this is a commercial property. It is not. It is a residential property with a tourist accommodation let use. This is completely different to having a commercial property particularly when they are on the grounds of a PPR, which happens in a lot of instances. For that reason again there will be a division on that. If we had tourist accommodation lets, the TAL is a brand new category and one can make up whatever rules one wants to apply to the category. To me, it is a logical step forward. I am not a planner and I do not know the ins and outs of it but to me that makes perfectly logical sense.

As already stated, if we decouple the planning from the registration, we could actually deliver the registration scheme quickly. We would get the vital data that we need. This is something that the industry wants as well. If we are able to do that we can move quite quickly. I mentioned this previously to the committee. I have been involved in conversations with the Government on the matter for several years. Legislation gets put forward, but then it does not go through. The TRIS single market notification process with the EU is then halted. It is clear that legislation is needed in order to understand the full picture of short-term lets across Ireland. Get the registration through and do not couple it with planning. We would probably be able to move a lot faster and actually see what that picture is in the context of supporting tourism and then look at housing, which is one of the main concerns.

As the witnesses know from working across the EU, it is not an EU requirement to have that planning side tied in.

No, it is completely separate. Take that effective EU legislation that is the registration scheme. Then we can get that data and work together to see what intervention might be needed. It might not be needed in many areas.

I thank everyone who has come along today. This has been a long road. As someone suggested earlier, it is difficult to understand how we do not have the legislation here in front of us, particularly in light of the road we have travelled in recent months. This has been a very good meeting.

I come from Wexford town, which has a population of 22,500 and which will be captured by a lot of the proposed changes. We can talk about planning and we can talk about registration. In my view, however, this is essentially driven by the notion that somehow short-term letting is having an impact when it comes to homelessness. We can play around with it all we want, but that is the bottom line. It is great to have statistics and everything else. I say that coming from a town that is just above the threshold, the proposed threshold or the assumed threshold. It is my firm belief that the five major cities become the problem area in terms of short-term letting, in terms of numbers and in terms of the availability of homes as such. From the point of view of booking.com, does Ms MacConnacher have any data on the number of stand-alone houses or homes, not necessarily detached, available in, for example, Dublin city by means of this platform that are deemed to be short-term lets?

I do not have that to hand. I can have a look and see what information we might be able to share. We can provide information on what we have on our platform but that does not necessarily give a full picture as to what the industry looks like, which again is why we want a registration scheme to actually have a clear picture.

I agree that nobody has a problem with registration; it is the planning. Fire safety, for example, is crucial, but have any of the planners alerted the witness organisations' members to the Part M element of planning which refers to accessibility issues? I have just looked up the rules on change of use and it provides that where there is a material change of use it typically triggers a legal requirement to comply with Part M of the building regulations. That basically means that a building has to be fully accessible. There are people who will advertise that a building is accessible or that a short-term let is accessible or not accessible. If they are to conform with planning guidelines, however, they have to be accessible. This would mean that a lot of people who cannot make their properties accessible, even if they have the resources, will literally be driven out of the market.

I agree 100%. The disability access certificate, DAC, was a bit of a curveball that kind of came our way today. Yes we must be fire compliant, and yes we have to have health and safety, but the DAC is a massive and probably insurmountable cost for people in rural Ireland.

Particularly for historic houses and given the nature of many of the those represented by Historic Houses of Ireland. We would all love it if many more places were accessible. Sadly, however, not everywhere can be accessible or made accessible. I would imagine this would preclude a lot of the houses in question meeting the planning requirements that would be proposed.

Absolutely. In terms of making things accessible, all of our members want to make the houses accessible if they are open and with tourist accommodation. Often, there is a wide diversity among different councils as to what they will and will not approve or what they will ask for in the context of change-of-use planning permission.

Having spent 20 years as a councillor, I am aware that interaction with planners is not the easiest route to go in any event. They can be very intransigent when it comes to rules. The planning unit does not employ an awful lot of flexibility when it comes to dealing with people, particularly in the context of their not being able to conform to planning requirements or building regulations. This will essentially force a lot of people out of the business. Who is going to spend the money required? It could cost €20,000 to make a place fully accessible. If the person is only getting €15,000 or €10,000 a year, he or she will not be inclined to invest that amount.

I would be interested in getting the statistics, particularly for urban areas, as to the numbers of houses that are all-year-round lets, short-term lets, granny flats or garden rooms. One size certainly does not fit all. In the context of the population threshold of 20,000, I do not see a problem in Wexford for instance with short-term lets. There are 3,000 households on the housing list but if we were to take all those short-term lets, 50% would not be suitable and 25% of the letters probably would not be inclined to go down that road because it is a semi-hobby with some people who do it. The notion that we would be including towns of 20,000 is a difficulty because I do not see it as a problem locally and I have been 20 years at it. I do not believe, however, that we can argue this in respect of the cities, where there is a crisis with housing and where there are thousands of short-term lets of varying styles and types. I do not think we can argue that some sort of regulation cannot be brought in there. It would be doing an injustice to the industry and to the people who are affected by it. What are the witnesses' views on this?

I will talk about Wexford first. A total of 7% of tourists who come to Ireland visit Wexford. It is unfortunate that Wexford is now within the barrier number.

Nobody has accepted the fact that Wexford has already lost 941 units that were built or used as tourism lets historically to Government contracts. When those are taken out of it and Wexford town is taken out of it, it will affect festivals, events and all the other things that happen in the area. I know it is the next town up, but if your house in Enniscorthy is flooded and you need somewhere to go, if there is a self-catering unit down in Wexford town, it would be better to go there while things are being sorted rather than sitting in a smelly house for a few weeks. There are all these other things that are not being considered in the context of the legislation.

We have been calling for planning guidelines for about five or six years. What is happening with planners relates to circumstances where someone applies to open a new glamping business or a self-catering unit. In most cases, the forms the planners get and the details the person sends in for the company they want to set up are on the floor. They never get off the floor because the planners have no guidelines. As a result, these people cannot proceed to develop their businesses.

Sorry, the clock has run out on us. We will now go to Senator Aubrey McCarthy.

I thank the witnesses for being here. As Deputy Lawlor said, it has been a long journey. It is a pity the legislation is not before us.

Listening to the witnesses, what I am finding is that everybody accepts that there is an urgent housing crisis. I wear two hats. I am in an unusual position in that I set up an approved housing body specifically to help house people who come from a cohort affected by addictions and homelessness. I also run the Lighthouse Café in Dublin, which feeds up to 500 people who are homeless and who are living on the streets daily. I am aware of the key need for housing, and there is a huge issue regarding the fact that 17,000 people are living in emergency accommodation. However, the problem is not that the witnesses are doing their business; it is that we did not build enough housing in the interim. Unfortunately, they are going to be the fall guys. That is what we are addressing here today.

My fear is that it is the design of the legislation that could unintentionally damage something that is working well. I talked to many of the witnesses beforehand. Many of them own self-catering or heritage properties, which are possibly not going to come back into the housing market anyway because they are not suitable. My fear is that we are either not going to deliver homes or that we will deliver a minimal number, and that we are going to damage something that is working well and remove tourism capacity as a result. Talking to Mr. Green regarding Ballyvolane House, I know there are heritage houses, farm diversification projects and rural businesses like that which are not just commercial enterprises. Tying to take all of that into account, we have to make sure that the legislation does not solve one crisis and create another.

I live beside Russborough House. I recently did a fundraiser. I know the CEO, Orla Gallagher, very well. She is doing an amazing job trying to keep that estate together. It is owned by the Irish people and run by the Beit Trust. There is a lack of accommodation in the area. The proposed legislation is going to further constrict that. What they have done in Russborough House is rented out two apartments as short-term lets to help support the income of the place. There have been various diversifications, including a playground, a restaurant and other things, and it has worked very well. The necessary commercial aspect of it is absolutely essential to run that historic property. My fear is that this is going to come undone.

Let us say with Booking.com, Ms MacConnacher spoke about a potential cliff edge in May when properties will disappear due to lack of registration or compliance. In practical terms, what is the alternative? Without getting rid of the legislation, what is the alternative for a smooth transition and what would that look like?

As I said previously, uncoupling the registration from the planning will then allow people to register their businesses, move forward on that, get that data which everyone hear wants to see and then we can move forward from there. We do not have an issue with that. We are working together to make sure we can do the technical aspects of this. The planning, as we have heard from other witnesses, is the thing that is making this difficult; it is not the registration.

Regarding the owners of the self-catering units - and I know some of them - how many of the Irish Self-Catering Federation members are willing to put their self-catering units back into long-term housing if the legislation goes against them?

Very few of them. We did a survey of members. Over 90% said their units are not suitable for long-term rental or they were not happy putting them into the long-term rental market. It is a very different market. It is quite labour intensive when you are working in self-catering. A long-term rental is a property you own, rent out and do not have any dealings with. Whereas in self-catering, there are a lot of costs involved in running the property, managing and maintaining it, getting it ready for guests and taking the bookings. It is very labour-intensive. That is why in many cases it suits women, particularly, in rural Ireland and therefore they are not going to return those properties to the long-term market. The property Mr. O'Keeffe, who is online with us, rents out is an old thatched cottage on his family farm. It is not suited to this. He will not let you or me in there at the moment because it is calving time. He blocks it off and does not allow it. Whereas when it is available, it is a great place for visitors to go, to walk the farm and hear the story of his farm. It is wonderful. Those types of properties are not going to be returned to the long-term market.

Would he be able to get away with the 90-day aspect there? Would that apply?

It is not his primary private residence, It is his grandparent's old house, and he did it up. He lives in the farmhouse next door.

I mentioned Russborough House. I know that it is owned by the State and that Ballyvolane House is privately owned. How necessary it is to have commercial enterprises such as short-term lettings at Ballyvolane House in order to keep the estate going?

It is absolutely essential for us to generate income to put into the restoration and maintenance of the historic property. They are very important cultural assets for this country. We represent built heritage in private hands and it is a lot cheaper for private owners to maintain these properties than for the State. The OPW manages several properties with much larger budgets. Without this income we are facing an existential threat, as are many of our members. We will be forced to put them on the market or they will just be left derelict, which is a big loss if these beautiful old historical properties fall into dereliction. It is absolutely essential that we have this income from the short-term lets to maintain and sustain our existence into the future. We are not getting rich from this. Everything we make goes back into the property. We employ a lot of people in the community. We host weddings. They come and stay with us. They stay in local accommodation providers. They spend money in pubs and restaurants. They spend money on local accommodation providers. We buy food and drink from local suppliers by and large so it is an important economic ecosystem in what is a very remote part of rural Ireland.

That is my fear. We will try to fix something, we will not fix it and then we will damage something else. That is the crisis here.

We have three guests who are still present with us and I thank them for their forbearance. In the following order, I will call on Senator O'Donovan and then Deputies Healy-Rae, Collins and Connolly. They have three minutes each and we will be very strict on the time limitation.

I thank the representatives for being here. For clarity, I represent west Cork, namely the area a little further east of Kinsale over to Dursey Island on the western side. As parliamentarians, we are fixed on the housing crisis in terms of improving housing stock and building more homes. We might differ in policy but we need more homes.

The issue with this proposed legislation, and my fear and the fear of all the committee members here, is that it will affect our short-term letting sector and tourism sector in west Cork. Mr. Keogh would have mentioned Ballydehob, Schull and other places. We are different. This is our product. We have fishing, farming and tourism. Fishing and farming are under challenges, as we all know. However, it is about the unintended consequences of this short-term letting and tourism legislation. Yes, we must build more homes. We need to get more young people into houses but we have a tourism product that is going to be affected by this legislation. It boils down to two key issues on the planning side.

We need a seven-year exemption or clear guidance to the planning sector of local authorities on allowing short-term lets. At the moment, anyone applying for planning permission for a short-term let will be refused. He or she will be given bad advice. That is the key issue here.

Deputy Collins has been raising the issue in the context of west Cork. We have been getting widespread contact.

I have some key questions. The tourism sector is estimated to be worth over €6 billion to the Irish economy. For the sector's representatives who are here as witnesses, if the legislation goes through as is and we lose short-term lets, what will be the loss to the Irish tourism sector?

Jim Power did a report for us and the figure he came up with was €256.7 million per annum along the Wild Atlantic Way alone. If I were asked to sum up the short-term let Bill in three words, I would say it is enforceable but unworkable. That is my take. Ms Ní Mhurchú may wish to come in.

I completely agree. West Cork is completely reliant on tourism. It is our main economy. East Cork used to be as reliant until a lot of properties were closed down. If this Bill comes in, people's properties will become illegal if they cannot comply with the planning as well as the registration. We must decouple and separate those aspects. We need a register to get clear data on the stock we have. We then need to put a line in the sand and say that from that point onward, people must apply for planning permission if they are going to have self-catering, and put regulations in place for that. Trying to do it for properties that have been there for 50, 100 or 150 years is not going to work.

It is about the unintended consequences. Mr. O'Keeffe said earlier that this is rural diversification. A farmhouse in a farmyard will not be used for long-term letting. It will not be sold from within that farmyard. However, it can provide that tourism product.

It is not just about supporting the local rural economy, pubs or shops. It is about the welcome that these hosts give. It is about the scones on the table and the guides that those people are.

And so say all of us. The Senator is right.

I thank the witnesses for coming. I know they are under pressure. I can see there is a move towards frightening people into going for planning. All I would say is that it is my solid contention that anyone who is at it for seven years has planning permission by default. I have said that many times previously. The Taoiseach admitted it to me in the Dáil Chamber this day last week. New aspects have been introduced to the planning system since the witnesses started. Some people have been at this for 20 years. It does not apply to the witnesses. They have planning permission because they have been doing it for more than seven years. They have permission by default.

I cannot see why the Government is insisting on this. There are two realistic options to deal with the housing crisis. I have, like my father before me, never believed that you can put one sector up by pulling the other sector down. I never did that and he never did that. There are two real options. There are hundreds of vacant houses throughout the country that are being used for nothing. Some incentive needs to be given to the people who own those houses to get them to do something with them. We need to let them, and give them a fair chance to do that. It needs a bit of investment. The houses are there.

The other option is to build more houses. I know that in County Kerry, hardly any local authority houses are being built. The local authority has stopped building houses, except for the voluntary houses. Down the line, they might not turn out to be as good an option for renters as they appear at present. Those are two areas we could probe further.

The Deputy should watch his time if he wants a response.

The other thing is that we are talking in a vacuum. We do not know what the planning guidelines are or what is being demanded. Again I say to the witnesses to watch the seven-year thing. If they apply for it and are refused, there is an admission that there was never planning permission.

Would anyone like to respond briefly?

Tourism is very important in Kerry.

It is important in Killarney.

It is important in all of Kerry. Over 28% of people working in Kerry are working in accommodation, tourism, or both. It is important that we retain tourism in Kerry, as in other counties, because if we do not have the places that allow people to visit they are not going to come.

I was in Kenmare and Cahersiveen I saw beautiful examples of derelict properties that have been renovated by people. They are now on the short-term rental market. The are gorgeous looking altogether. It is great that people are doing that, but in many cases it is a part of their pension or retirement fund and they are planning to use the property themselves down the line.

I attended this committee's meeting last week. I have been attending these meetings for the last number of years, as a matter of fact. I can see the seriousness of the issue. There was mention of Skibbereen and Ballydehob. I am a few miles west down that road in Schull. Ms Ní Mhurchú knows that.

The bottom line here is that the Government has used a rock-breaker to break a nut. You often hear of a hammer to break a nut but there is no need to use a rock-breaker. This will wipe out tourism as we know it. That is a simple fact. Anyone here who denies that is away in dreamland. We know it. Ms MacConnacher said a while ago that we should not couple registration with planning.

Department officials were before the committee last week. They were all over the road. If they were driving, we would have said they were flaming drunk. They had no idea what they were doing. The Chairman was brilliant and did well. It was sad it was not in public. There were several things that we could pick on. They had no maps to show 20,000 properties. Someone might be doing Airbnb in Bandon. I do not know if that figure is for properties from Bishopstown Court out to Roscarbery or where it is. There were no maps. They apologised and said they would probably look into doing maps. One minute later, they said that pods and little granny flats would be exempt. That was fantastic. I asked what is on the form at the moment and the answer was, "Have you planning or do you not have planning?" I asked the department official, whose name I will not make known, if there was a third category. Immunity was the third category. That is brilliant. I asked if that was on the form and was told it was not. In that case, I asked, should people state they have planning permission and I was told that was not right. I asked whether they should state they do not have planning permission. If they do not have planning, you know what the next visit is going to be. It is all over the road. It is as simple as that.

Mr. Keogh referred to the 80 days. People do not know what is happening. Nobody who I meet in west Cork knows what is happening. The witnesses do not know what is happening. God almighty, it is a living terror to think that legislation is going to be before us soon. It is dropped into the Minister, I can guarantee that, without seeing it, and no one knows it. The witnesses are depending on it.

What is happening at the moment is that there is a panic out there. People are saying they are not booking. People are asking if they can take bookings. There is confusion. I have never seen such confusion in all my life. Something could easily be sorted. The Minister, in my view, could do something right now.

I ask the Deputy to be mindful of leaving time for a response.

I respect that. I do not think I will take a response. We are all singing from the same hymn sheet. Common sense has gone out the bloody window inside here at present. Do not couple registration with planning. Pull that, and sit down.

I know that registration is important, as is the NQAF. My problem is that rates and fees are the next thing. Those are what people will be hit with, unfortunately. My biggest concern is the planning issue. People have been operating for 20 or 30 years without any planning issue but are not planning compliant, as such. All I got from the officials last week was to tell the people to sign into it and not to worry. I asked them if they would sign a piece of paper to the effect that people would have nothing to worry about, but was told "No". Once you put down that you do not have the planning, you are frigged. Pardon my language.

I have a question about one particular cohort in the sector for whom the witnesses might have data. In my constituency in particular, a number of homes are holiday homes that are owned by people in other parts of the country. They spend perhaps six to eight weeks of the year in their holiday home. For the rest of the year, they might put the property on a short-term letting website and let it out. I am concerned. If that is lost to the community, there is a particular loss of economic activity, particularly in the shoulder season or outside the main season. Do the witnesses have any data on the number of units that would meet those criteria?

I will hand over to Ms Argue, who is a marketing agent. She is joining us from Kerry.

Is that okay with the Deputy?

Thank you, yes.

Good afternoon. I do not have any specific data for all over the country.

A significant number of our owners are in that situation. They give us their property to rent for a certain portion of the year, and for the remainder they use it themselves or their friends and families come and go.

I apologise to Ms Argue. Is she gone?

The joys of broadband in Kerry.

To echo the concern, if owners cannot carry on in the short-term letting sector, it is very unlikely they will put the house up for long-term rent. They might be in a position where they can leave the asset there, and just put up with it. It is their holiday home. I am concerned about the loss of economic activity that could generate. Again, the legislation and planning have to be mindful of that.

I had actually asked Ms Argue this question. For every €25 spent on accommodation, €75 euro per day is spent in the area per person. She could calculate exactly the economic value to her area, Kerry, and the area that she visits. It is a pity that the link to Ms Argue has broken.

Would that account for 25% of the sector? Does anyone know?

Again, we need data.

We need the data. It goes back to what I said - this Bill is enforceable but unworkable. That is what this Bill is. We need the data.

I have a similar question to Deputy Connolly. People have contacted me from the Aran Islands. There is a situation there whereby someone may have the family home and they might be keeping it for their own children when they get to an age, or they may have relations coming and going at different times of the year, during mid-term holidays or whatever else, and for other times they want to have the property available to rent. There cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to this.

Most people I engage with have no issue with the registration. There are concerns about planning. Most of the cases I come across involve family properties where people have a house from family members.

There is a group in Connemara called Bánú that has raised this issue and concerns that Airbnb lets are detracting from the area. However, at the end of the day, the majority of these homes are owned by local people in the community. There is an issue but, in general, these are family-owned properties. As Deputy Connolly said, there are specific issues on islands and different places where there are family homes.

Unfortunately, our time has expired. I ask Senators to pass on apologies to Deputy Ward, because the next committee will be delayed by five minutes. We have run over time.

I sincerely thank Ms Ní Mhurchú, Mr. Keogh, Ms MacConnacher, Mr. Green and Mr. Emmet who are present, and also Mr. O'Keeffe and Ms Argue who joined the meeting online. My apologies for the technical issues.

The committee, collectively, is seriously concerned that there are holes in this proposal. That is the majority view. As Cathaoirleach, I have been doing everything I can. I would appreciate it if it could be fed back to the witnesses’ respective organisations and members that we are acutely aware of these difficulties. Deputy Collins spoke about the private meeting last week. We had a very robust and long meeting to try to get some palatable solution in respect of this. We are doing our best. I am not allowed to say any more because our time is up. I thank everybody for their participation and apologise again to the European Affairs committee.

The joint committee will meet again in public session at 12.30 p.m on Wednesday, 25 February 2026. There will be a private meeting at 12.15 p.m. on Tuesday, 24 February 2026.