Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

An analysis was done of these local electoral areas that found that 62 had no chance of ever becoming a rent pressure zone. That is for technical reasons around the rent pressure zone legislation. It is not because there are not very high rent increases in these areas. It is the way the rent pressure zone regulations are written and what qualifies and does not qualify to become a rent pressure zone. It is not just about high rent increases. There is more to it than that to qualify as a rent pressure zone. For example, 44 of them do not have enough data collected to ever be considered eligible to be a rent pressure zone or not. Regardless of what happens to rents in those areas, they will never even be considered to be a rent pressure zone because they are smaller areas with a smaller amount of data collection and data points.

In previous meetings I drew attention to comments made by Adhna Ní Bhraonáin in An Spidéal, which is not a rent pressure zone. She is a physiotherapist who works in the local medical centre but she has been unable to find somewhere to live. She lives out of a van and is unable to prepare meals or take a shower. She has talked about how frustrating it is to see hundreds of homes in her local community available as short-term lets but nothing being available for her as someone who has come back to her community with physiotherapist skills, which are very much needed in the community. This is a highly qualified person doing this professional work while living out of a van. It is completely and utterly unacceptable. Remember that this Bill, if my amendment is not accepted, will keep the status quo and there will not be regulation of short-term lets in areas like that which are not rent pressure zones.

There are no rent pressure zones in County Donegal, for example. Kamile Satinskaite has recently talked about this, how she moved to Letterkenny in 2018, and when she first arrived in Donegal, she lived in a four-bedroom house where she and three housemates paid €400 each per month in rent or €1,600 for the house together. Now she is paying €700 a month to live in a converted garage with one bedroom, a joint livingroom-cum-kitchen and a bathroom.

She says she would leave the country were it not for her entire family being based here. She said, "We couldn't get anywhere. There's loads of vacant houses in our area but they're all holiday homes and most of them weren't willing to rent because they have them on Airbnb and they were making more money that way". She also said, "You were driving past vacant houses every single day and houses that might only be used a couple of weeks of the year and knowing you couldn't rent any of them was really frustrating". Threshold spoke about the need for parts of Donegal to become rent pressure zones to address this. Most of the areas that are not rent pressure zones never will be.

Analysis by The Irish Examinera number of months ago compared rental properties available on Daft.ie with Airbnb rentals. It found that in Donegal, where there are no rent pressure zones - legislation proposes to do nothing about the situation there - the number of rental properties available on Daft.ie was 31 while the number of Airbnb rentals was 1,796, so there is clearly a massive problem in the context of a lack of balance and regulation because these are required urgently. If you look at the number of towns outside rent pressure zones, such as, for example, Bencorr in Galway, you can see that 39% of all homes are holiday homes. In Roundstone, 48% of all homes are holiday homes. In Dooega in Mayo, 43% of all homes are holiday homes. In Ballinskelligs in Kerry, 55% of homes are holiday homes. In Greenore in Donegal, 57% of homes are holiday homes. In Rosguill in Donegal, 58% of homes are holiday homes. In Caherdaniel in Kerry, 58% of homes are holiday homes. In Derrynane, 65% of homes are holiday homes.

All the housing stock in these places consists of holiday homes. Some of that is driven by unregulated short-term lets, which provide an income stream that makes owning a holiday home a more viable proposition for someone from another part of the country because there is an income stream for him or her, whereas previously a person would have had to bear most of the cost of purchasing a holiday home in one of these areas themselves or it would have been more complicated in terms of renting it out. Again, I stress that I am not advocating that we do not have holiday homes or short-term lets. I am simply strongly making the case for the need for regulation and balance. The idea in this Bill that regulation of short-term lets is only to happen in rent pressure zones and areas like the entire county of Donegal and other rural communities are to be excluded when the lack of regulation is causing undue hardship and problems is indefensible so I urge the Minister to accept my amendment so that the regulation of short-term lets happens across the board.