Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the delegations for their presentations. I am not opposed to short-term home-sharing lettings as a kind of a tourism product. Everyone is convinced of the merits of this. However, when we talk about the collaborative economy, there is an attempt to present these business models as almost like the old co-operatives, like some kind of organic, folksy and nice way of doing business. This is not what we are talking about. Whether it is Amazon, Betfair, Betdaq, Uber or platforms like Airbnb, this is a new multi-billion euro business model that is beginning to take hold in a range of sectors of the economy. It is about driving down costs, as well as avoiding or evading, within or without the law, existing regulations which govern traditional sectors of the economy. These are all causing a whole host of regulatory difficulties for countries. None of that is new to us. We need to acknowledge there is something significant here with which we are trying to grapple.

The concern many of us have is not with the person who lets out the room or the house for a short time. No one has any difficulty with that, so long as they pay their taxes, are regulated, etc. Our concern is that the practice in other jurisdictions, from which we have more information than we have here, suggests there are commercial landlords using these platforms either to generate higher incomes or to avoid tax and regulations. That is the nub of what we are trying to get at.

I am disappointed with Airbnb. I met Airbnb in January and outlined the information I felt it needed to put in the public domain to demonstrate whether we have a problem. What is clear from everything said today is that we just do not know if we have a problem because we do not have the data. That is not the fault of anyone in this room today. I set out clearly to Airbnb that if it wanted to demonstrate good faith to politicians and to statutory bodies, it should give us the information it has. For example, how many units of accommodation are available to let for a year, for between six months and a year, for between three months and six? How many units of accommodation are not the principal private dwellings of the owners? We need to be putting pressure on Airbnb to give this information to either the working group or to put it into the public domain. Until we have that, and while the independent study outlined by Dr. Dáithí Downey will be helpful in this regard, we are not going to know whether we have a problem and, if so, where it is situated and its impacts.

I am also frustrated at the Department. I do not know whether this is the fault of the Minister or the Secretary General. The Bord Pleanála decision was in October last year. The circular to the local authorities was in December. We were told by the Taoiseach and the Minister in January that a working group has been set up. It only had its first meeting last week, however. That is on the basis of the information we have been given today and the reply to a parliamentary question which I got late last night.

I am not trying to be antagonistic with anyone presenting to this committee. However, given the level of pressure on the private rental market, particularly in Dublin, the level of the housing and homelessness crisis and the number of families being put out of rental accommodation because of notices to quit by buy-to-let landlords with distressed mortgages, there is a level of urgency with this. It seems to me that, seven months on from the Bord Pleanála decision, no one is taking this seriously. I will say to the Minister and the Secretary General tomorrow that there is a level of urgency in this matter which cannot wait until September, October or November.

I am also concerned about talk of a memorandum of understanding. It is self-regulation. We know Airbnb in Barcelona, for example, was constantly flouting the law. It has just been fined €600,000 there for allowing 7,000 unregistered short-term lets on its platform of 16,000. The idea of Airbnb talking nicely to us is what it does. These are professionals and it is a big corporate organisation which has a particular business model. I do not want to be singling it out but it is the one we know more about. In addition to existing planning regulations being enforced, be it the local authorities and the circular, the Department is looking at drafting a memorandum of understanding and applying it to Airbnb and other platforms. The experience from other European cities with high tourism product and high homelessness problems, however, is that self-regulation will not work. Strong regulation in itself is not working in cities like Barcelona which has just doubled the number of inspectors it has.

I hope this committee sends a strong signal, which is taken back to the Secretary General and to the Minister, that we need regulation. That regulation needs to be along the lines of what is operating in other jurisdictions, once we have the data to identify the scale of the problem which we may or may not have here. That includes setting a number of days but also having a sufficient level of disincentive for people who break those rules and some formal regulation of the platforms themselves.

I know the Department is busy and there is significant pressure on it because of the housing and the homeless crisis. Will officials tell us why it took so long to have the first meeting of that working group? What is the timescale for finalising a report and bringing back proposals, whether to the Minister or the committee, for consideration? Given the behaviour of some of the platforms, especially Airbnb in other jurisdictions, why does the Department believe a memorandum of understanding will be a useful tool rather than clear regulations?

I am interested to know if Dublin City Council has any data to show that there has been an increase in the total number of short-term lets, from the limited data it has been able to access. There seems to be some census data to suggest that there has been some increase. This is not just commercial landlords misusing such platforms to evade various kinds of regulation to make more profit. Are we seeing an increase in the overall number?