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Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien has said discussions around how Ireland might regulate short-term let platforms like AirBnb are underway between the Department of Housing and the Department of Tourism https://jrnl.ie/5310075
In an interview with @thejournal_ie, the minister said a senior officials group has been set up “to do a bit of work on it”.
O'Brien said: “Now is the time to do it."
With tourism being virtually non-existent due to the pandemic, now is the time to make changes, he said
O'Brien said: “Now is the time to do it."
With tourism being virtually non-existent due to the pandemic, now is the time to make changes, he said
His predecessor Eoghan Murphy had wanted to bring in regulation of the platform, at the same time as the new enforcement rules in 2019, but he said it was a matter for the Department of Tourism at the time https://jrnl.ie/4589817
The announcement that regulating the platforms might be on the cards, comes after Minister O'Brien said the State should buy up some of the empty short-term let properties.
O'Brien said the state hasn't bought as many as he would have liked https://jrnl.ie/5146915
O'Brien said the state hasn't bought as many as he would have liked https://jrnl.ie/5146915
Changes to short-term let rules were flagged back in 2018, and came into effect last year. But there have been many obstacles that have made enforcement difficult https://jrnl.ie/4304032
Even when the new rules came, Sinn Féin’s housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said councils such as Dublin City Council needed to aggressively enforce the new short-term letting laws https://jrnl.ie/4754267
Councils had already been struggling to crack down on many unauthorised short-term lets after fielding hundreds of complaints from locals, with @noteworthy_ie documenting the uphill battle to police Ireland's new Airbnb rules https://jrnl.ie/4671034
Last August, it was revealed that since the short-term let regulations came in the month previous, Dublin City Council had only received eight planning applications for a ‘change of use’.
But it had seen 140 applications for exemptions to the new rules https://jrnl.ie/4759642
But it had seen 140 applications for exemptions to the new rules https://jrnl.ie/4759642
Now, the housing minister admits that regulation of the platforms is the way forward, saying the regulations were not backed up with the resources needed to carry out the enforcement.
“We need to go a step further by regulating the platforms, in my view,” he said
“We need to go a step further by regulating the platforms, in my view,” he said
We'll be keeping an eye on how this progresses.
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