The Government is putting AirBnB ahead of renters as short term rental legislation is delayed, according to Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne and Galway West byelection candidate M\u00edde Nic Fhionnlaoich.<\/p>\n
Deputy Hearne said:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a year since Enterprise Minister Peter Burke secured Cabinet approval to publish the General Scheme of the new Short Term Letting and Tourism (STLT) Bill – the legislation would introduce a register for all short term lets in Ireland, which there have been plans to introduce since at least 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe intention of the Bill is to free up more properties for the long-term rental market. This is urgent given there were only 14 properties available to rent within the limits of the HAP scheme across 16 local authority areas in March, while there is a dire shortage of long term rental properties of any kind across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast month, Threshold reported that some counties have 25 times more AirBnBs than long-term rental units while a conservative estimate is that there are four times as many short-term lets than long-term rental properties across the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite this, earlier this year the government diluted the impact of this forthcoming and much-needed regulation by excluding towns with a population fewer than 20,000 people from its ambit. Now, we hear today, that this watered down version of the regulations is going to miss yet another deadline – and not be ready until after the summer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is further evidence, if any were needed, that when it comes to housing, this Government is not serious about addressing the disaster families and workers are faced with.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo add insult to injury, while we have thousands of tourists staying in homes across the country, Fine Gael and Fianna F\u00e1il want renters to live in sheds in back gardens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Coalition is putting the interests of landlords offering short term lets ahead of the renters of Ireland, despite the housing crisis reaching new lows once considered unimaginable.<\/p>\n
M\u00edde Nic Fhionnlaoich, who is from the Gaeltacht area of Leitir M\u00f3r, said:<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have waited for years for action on short term lets as our communities have been hollowed out. We don’t have time for the government to continue dithering over this legislation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnly applying the new rules to Galway city spells disaster for the Gaeltacht in Conamara. We already see short term lets squeeze out Irish speakers who want to live in the Gaeltacht, and this approach will only put more pressure on those trying to buy or rent in Connemara.\u201d<\/p>\n
April 28th, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Government is putting AirBnB ahead of renters as short term rental legislation is delayed, according to Social Democrats housing spokesperson Rory Hearne and Galway West byelection candidate M\u00edde Nic Fhionnlaoich. Deputy Hearne said: \u201cIt\u2019s been a year since Enterprise Minister Peter Burke secured Cabinet approval to publish the General Scheme of the new Short […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15487,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[730,10,803,7,510],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaeltacht","category-housing-crisis","category-mide-nic-fhionnlaoich","category-press-release","category-rory-hearne"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n