Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their submissions. They are really helpful. This committee is looking at two issues which are separate but related. The first is what is the best way, in our view, for the short-term letting sector to be regulated for its own benefit, both in terms of hosts and people availing of the services. We are also concerned, however, with ensuring that those regulations prevent people from abusing short-term letting platforms or the short-term letting sector to evade existing regulations for commercial landlords and that they prevent any other unintended consequences arising from genuine peer-to-peer home-sharing or short lets. Those are the two things which we are looking at.

All members of the committee have pretty consistently said that we do not believe that short-term lets caused the homelessness crisis. That is clear. I believe most of us would have a similar view, to some degree, to Mr. McCafferty. At the same time, given the fact that short-term lets are so heavily concentrated in four postal codes in the centre of Dublin - Dublin 1, Dublin 7, Dublin 2 and Dublin 8 - and given that they are often in areas where people at risk of homelessness can get their foot into some kind of lower-cost rental accommodation, we really want to make sure that, in that very defined area, there are not negative spillovers from what is clearly a positive development in terms of tourism and income generation for hard-pressed families.

Obviously Mr. McCafferty will not have data, but knowing those four Dublin city areas as well as Threshold does, is there any anecdotal evidence that there is some displacement from properties that previously would have been commercially rented properties, particularly at the lower end of the market in, for example, Mountjoy Square or Stoneybatter, shifting over into short-term lets?

A lot of the issues Mr. Elliot has raised are really interesting. Has the Department's working group on short-term letting regulations contacted him? Is he considering making a written submission? While that information is really interesting to the committee, Mr. Elliot's input could certainly be of value in the Department's considerations.

From Dr. Lyons's knowledge of how the regulation of the sector for its own benefit has operated in other jurisdictions, what is his preferred model? I would also like to hear what he has to say specifically on the potential impact on lower-income housing supply in those four Dublin city areas. The impact of 3,800 lettings across Dublin or the State would be miniscule, but if one was to take 500 or 700 properties and put them all in Dublin 1 it could have a very significant impact in that very defined area. Is that something Dr. Lyons has look at? What are his thoughts on it?