Mr. Eoghan O'Mara Walsh:

It is concerning. The planning regulations are really concerning. as is the fact that we have not had sight of them. We have a fear that they are just going to be presented to us by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage as a fait accompli. I understand that this committee has asked to see the regulations but I do not know whether that request has been successful. We should push the Department on this because we must have some input.

The Senator makes a good point about the fact that in the old days people were bussed from the Westbury down to Meath to enjoy the Hill of Tara or some other attraction and then bussed straight back. Now it is very different because of the accommodation stock, particularly the non-hotel accommodation stock in the area. Fáilte Ireland's data show that for every euro a tourist spends on accommodation, another €2.50 is spent on ancillary tourism services. That €2.50 is spent in local restaurants, pubs and tourist shops, on taxis and so on and that risks being lost if this new legislation, with onerous planning regulations, denudes regional, coastal and rural Ireland of the self-catering accommodation stock or the short-term tourist lets.

Deputy Cannon is right when he says that we have to tread very carefully. There is obviously a balance to be struck between housing needs and tourism needs but at the moment my fear is that it is skewed too much in favour of one direction and it needs to be scaled back. I am a tourism lobbyist - and I know that "lobbyist" sounds like a bad word these days - but even I accept that this will reduce the short-term tourism lets in the country. In urban areas and city centres where housing is desperately needed, that is only right and proper but we have to be very careful, particularly in regional Ireland, that we do not throw the baby out with the bathwater because it will have long-term unintended economic consequences. This is especially true in the context of places like Killarney, where 36% of the hotel bedrooms are gone to the Government for humanitarian reasons. There is already a lack of hotel or traditional tourism accommodation stock so imagine what will happen if all of the short-term tourist rentals also go because Killarney happens to be in a rent pressure zone. We have to tread very carefully.