Ms Amanda Cupples:

Perhaps I can go first. I will answer the question slightly differently, only because from an Airbnb perspective, it is not really for us to say whether housing policy objectives have been achieved. As fashionable as it is to draw a very straight line between short-term letting and long-term accommodation, the reality is that the correlation is not as direct as is often asserted. That said, there are all sorts of places all over the world where we work with regulators that have implemented registration systems for purposes of balancing tourism generation and housing.

The example I would point to in Europe, which has been very successful for us, is Amsterdam and the Netherlands, which is one of the countries I look after. They have a registration system. It is a national framework that cities can then choose to opt into or not. Therefore, it is not compulsory, which means that areas that do not have that issue of tension between tourism and housing pressures simply do not take the legislation if they do not need it. The system itself has many of the features we talked about in our various submissions. The system is very low-cost. It is digital; if a person hosts, it is instant, so he or she gets his or her number straight away. Our commitment is to publish those numbers, which we do. We have a digital tool we use when we work with the cities whereby if the city become aware of a listing that is non-compliant, it notifies us, and we take it down. Has that fixed housing pressures in Amsterdam? No, it has not, because the root cause of housing pressures is much more complex than the existence of short-term accommodation. It does demonstrate, however, that it is possible to balance the two competing priorities. It shows that it is possible for platforms for short-term letting operators and hosts to work in partnership, collaboratively, constructively and digitally, with regulators and authorities to bring in systems that are, at their heart, evidence-based in order that planning decisions that can be made are made from the perspective of understanding the type, nature and volume of short-term letting and, most importantly, the propensity for that accommodation to be released back on to the long-term market. As has been said, much accommodation is either not suitable or the owners are simply not in a position to put it back on. We would point to that as a very successful example.

As I said, we have been enthusiastic proponents of an EU-wide system and we will continue to advocate for that solution. It can be done, however, and we believe we can get it right in Ireland if we take some time and do it properly.