Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-29
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

First of all, the short-term letting and tourism Bill will provide the statutory basis for the introduction of a register of all short-term lets in Ireland. That will be accompanied by a planning statement from the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Browne, governing that entire framework. That will broadly restrict the approval of new planning permissions for short-term lets in cities and large towns. All of this is aligned with the European directive and the European approach to this.
Bear in mind that even in Deputy Cairns's area there has been a lot of pushback, not from any particular Deputies, but generally from people who have been operating Airbnbs in west Cork, Kerry, along the western seaboard and in the south-eastern areas from a tourism point of view. There has been a reaction against it - not from any one TD, but from people on the ground. Yesterday, I was answering this question from a different perspective from the Deputy's colleague Deputy Collins, who is completely against any ending of the short-term lets and so on.
We have decided on the figure of 20,000. We think it is a reasonable balance. If we can get the short-term lets back to housing in the cities and the large towns, that will be a good day's work. It is not simple either, in terms of planning laws and the frameworks around that, to make sure that we get it right. The Government will introduce this. We will be doing it and are nearly there, to be quite frank, in terms of completing the process. It is a measure in addition to all the other measures.
The Deputy is derisive about what she calls "sheds". They are not sheds. Talk to people. She says she has spoken to people in her constituency. A lot of people in west Cork approve of the planning exemption proposal around units at the back of their houses and so on. They actually approve of it. Some people will be paying up to €80,000 for those, if they are modular units, for example. They may use them for their family members but family members will not be there forever. We have a housing supply crisis and it makes sense to free up the planning permitting situation for units of that kind. We will keep it under review.
I am in favour of anything that increases supply. I am not really interested in rhetoric. I am not interested in opposing everything that everybody proposes. The vast majority of what the Government has proposed over the last number of years on housing has been opposed by the Social Democrats and others. The Social Democrats oppose any private sector involvement. We have a lot of workers working in Ireland. There are a lot of people out there who would avail of these kinds of units and take pressure off the more conventional rental market.
It is about supply and we make no apology for it. Next week, we will look at rural planning guidelines for housing as well, which the Deputy will probably oppose, but we have to produce more supply.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-29