Ms Niamh McGuire:

I will resume the answer on the platforms and their obligations. The platforms have a number of obligations set out in the regulation and under the Digital Services Act. They have to design the interface of their platform in a particular way that allows for a display of a registration number in order that it is clearly visible to a person booking the accommodation. The address details need to be displayed and will be made available to the competent authorities. They have to do a number of verification checks as well to check that numbers are valid and engage with member states on those checks. In the case of the larger platforms, they have to provide monthly reports on short-term letting activity data. That is a whole suite of data which will be very useful and welcome in terms of tourism data. That data includes the location of the property, how many guest nights were sold in the previous month and the country of origin of the people who stayed in the accommodation. We will have a whole raft of information. The engagement process with those platforms happens at both national level and EU level with the European Commission. The planning is a matter for the Department of housing and the local authorities. As I understand, they are looking at the resource requirements.

There was a question on flexibility if there was a backlog. From 20 May, an EU regulation will take immediate effect in law which will require a registration system. From May, providers will be required to register and confirm compliance with planning. If somebody cannot do that at that point, they will not be in a position to register. It will be necessary for accommodation providers to have their planning permission in place prior to the May launch date of the register.