Ms Lorna Cahill:

We cannot quantify. We have surveyed our own hosts. I do not know how many entered the survey but it would not have been all 2,000. Of the hosts who entered the survey, 89% said their property would never qualify as a full-time home.

I can give examples. I look after two other houses. They are not mine. They are two other Airbnbs that are five minutes from my home. I tell everyone I manage them. I clean and look after the houses and meet and greet the guests. The owner of one of those homes is 85 years of age and lives in Birmingham. He left Miltown Malbay when he was 14, which was 61 years ago, but this is still his home house. He comes back to that house five or six times a year, usually for between three and five weeks at a time. That house has to be there and available to him. Letting it for the short term enables me to earn a couple of bob from it but it also means that our locality, all of the area, benefits. It is also gives him the money to maintain that house while it is still his primary home in Ireland.

The other house I look after belongs to a family who are living in Lisbon at the moment. When their son finishes secondary school, they will return to Ireland. That is their primary home in Ireland. They probably stay in that house for three months of the year, and for four months it is let as a short-term let.