Mr. Paul Kelly:

We are picking that up all across the country. The national housing crisis is a real challenge for staffing in tourism. We are hearing the same thing as that referred to by the Senator, namely, that if you bring workers in, they must have somewhere affordable to live. It is certainly an issue. The Government's Housing for All programme has a huge range of actions and everyone in the industry would like to see them all implemented as soon as possible in order that housing becomes more available and affordable.

It is important to say that the likes of Airbnb are just distribution platforms. We encourage all tourist accommodation to register with us. They are not required to do so but there is such a proposal in Housing for All. This proposal requires legislation to be enacted to require all tourist accommodation to register with the Government through Fáilte Ireland. We support that but it requires legislation to make that happen. That would at least be a very important first step in terms of bringing that part of the economy into a more regulated position. I know various other initiatives in Housing for All will look to work on that as well.