No urgency in government’s response to unregulated short-term lets – Eoin Ó Broin TD

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Housing, Eoin Ó Broin TD, has said that there is no urgency in the government’s response to unregulated short-term lets.

The Dublin Mid-West TD’s comments were made as the government published their revised General Scheme of the Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill 2025.

Teachta Ó Broin said:

“Sinn Féin has been raising the need for regulation of short-term letting since 2019. Despite overwhelming evidence that unregulated short-term letting, particularly in Rent Pressure Zones, is leading to a reduction in long-term rental stock, the government has continued to drag its feet on this issue.

“The 2019 regulations introduced by then-Minister Eoghan Murphy were a step in the right direction but were impossible to enforce. We warned of this at the time but were ignored. Sinn Féin tabled legislation in 2022 to address this problem and, while government did not oppose the Bill, they did nothing with it passed second stage in the Dáil.

“When then-Minister Catherine Martin proposed the creation of a register for short-term lets, similar to the one in operation for B&Bs, we said we would support it. But following undue interference from the European Commission, that Bill was greatly delayed.

“Finally, the government has now published a revised general scheme for the short-term letting register. Sinn Féin spokesperson on Tourism, Rose Conway-Walsh, will lead our work on this Bill. However there is real frustration that the register will not be up and running until 2026 at the earliest.

“I welcome the fact that the revised General Scheme included regulation of and sanctions for online platforms such as Airbnb. However, the provisions appear overly complicated and may end up just as worthless as the 2019 regulations.

“Sinn Féin’s principal concern, however, is not with the General Scheme, but with the as-yet-unpublished planning regulations. From media reports, it appears that the government is intent on using an arbitrary population threshold of 10,000 to determine whether commercial short-term letting operators will have to secure planning permission or not. This is not the right approach.

“Sinn Féin wants short-term lets to be banned within Rent Pressure Zones. Outside RPZs, where short-term letting contributed to the local tourism economy, we want a bespoke planning process allowing people to regularise the commercial short-term lets while allowing the planning authority to determine what the appropriate level of such rentals can operate in any given area.”