Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The answer is that there is no trend. We have many sites under construction and individual sites will have particular issues.

With regard to short-term letting, I indicated previously that I am responsible for the planning system. We will get at the short-term letting issue through change in the planning laws. However, I also indicated that further work will be necessary, after we have made these planning changes, to regulate the sector because there might be a point three to five years hence at which it might be decided to regulate it in a different way and allow people to have a second property to be let on Airbnb in a place such as Dublin. The regulation of what is a tourism activity would not fall to my Department so I am using the tools available to me, as Minister, to ensure we can get a significant number of homes back into use, basically not allowing people to "home share" a second property in high-demand areas. We can do that through the planning laws and we believe we can monitor it very effectively, but there will be a point in time, because this is a dynamic part of the economy, where it needs to be regulated as a tourism activity, bearing in mind hotel nights and everything else happening in the economy for tourists. That second phase is necessary, but my immediate goal is to get the properties back into use and we can do that through the planning laws.