Mr. John-Mark McCafferty:

I thank the Chair and the committee for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Threshold today. Halfway through my presentation I shall hand over to my colleague, Mr. Gavin Elliott, who is the legal officer for Threshold.

Threshold is a national housing charity that has regional advice centres in Dublin, Cork and Galway. Threshold provides front-line advice and support services to people with housing problems across Ireland and our main focus is the private rental sector. Threshold's advice services interface with a high proportion of the 320,000 households who live in the private rental sector.Last year, our housing advisers took almost 39,000 actions in terms of advising and assisting tenants who were experiencing housing problems and almost 150,000 users accessed our website.

We would like to take this opportunity to raise the issue expressed by other people before the committee about the proliferation of short-term lets. We sense that there is a potential for it to have a negative impact on the supply of properties in the private rental sector. The current high rents experienced by many in the private rental sector are in a large part due to a lack of overall supply. Clearly, anything that reduces the supply requires analysis and, on foot of sound analysis, action where appropriate. We have no evidence to suggest that the increase in short-term lets has led to a reduction in the supply of affordable private rented sector accommodation. However, rents have substantially increased, especially in urban areas, in the years that short-term lets have been in the ascendent. The relationship between short-term lets and private rented sector supply warrants close and ongoing monitoring. Having said that, it is our analysis that the abject lack of social housing since the 1980s, deliberate Government decisions on social housing provision since then and the perform storm of rent increases in the past three to four years are the key drivers of the current crisis.

Last Monday almost 1,400 properties were advertised on www.daft.iefor Dublin city. Only 122 properties or fewer than 9% were advertised at rents of €1,250 per month or less. That amount is the maximum monthly rent limit for a family with two children in receipt of rent supplement or a housing assistance payment from Dublin City Council.

It is clear that there are a number of actors in the short-term letting market. There are people who own or rent and list their properties for a few weekends a year. There are people who list their properties more regularly but retain them as their primary residences and there are those who list properties full-time. Any attempt to regulate the market must take account of different letting scenarios and motivations.

My colleague, Mr. Gavin Elliott, will continue the presentation.