Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Troy. In all fairness, the Minister of State is now asking us to come with a full housing plan. Everybody on the committee has worked with the Government on major pieces of legislation to progress through this House. We have also presented 13 Bills. It is wrong to say we are not part of the solution. We have been part of the solution. That should be recognised. I also must recognise the protest outside the Dáil today on homelessness.

Most of my contribution will be about homelessness. I refer again to a proposal that was made by our committee and indeed legislation that was proposed by Fianna Fáil regarding the impact short-term letting platforms are having on the availability of homes which could provide a solution to the homelessness crisis. I was the first Deputy in this Dáil to raise the issue at the committee in 2016, with the then Minister, who clearly indicated that he declared a potential conflict of interest because he used a short-term letting platform for a holiday. He also indicated that he did not believe it was having a significant impact on the availability of homes for homeless people. At that time, we had 1,078 families and 2,026 children homeless. At the very same time, there were thousands of entire homes and apartments available on short-term letting platforms. The committee worked and prepared a detailed report on the impact the short-term letting platforms were having on the housing market. Fianna Fáil introduced legislation around the short-term letting platforms. We can clearly see that they are having a significant impact. In fairness, the Minister introduced regulation of the platforms on which we worked with him. However, all he introduced was a definition of a short-term letting platform and he was using the planning process to deal with it. I clearly said at the time that this will never work. It is now proven that it will not work. The amount of resources required to surf the Internet every day to try to establish how many properties are available for 90 days or more is almost impossible to reconcile. Figures obtained through freedom of information show that only 4% have applied for planning for short-term lettings and there is 0.3% enforcement. Clearly that process is not working.

I pointed out at that time that what was required was the regulation of the short-term letting platforms, not the properties. Until we regulate them, we will waste resources and energy trying to get on top of this. If we had regulated the short-term letting platforms, they could have given us the detailed information that we require to use the 90-day definition that is in the Planning and Development Act, but we do not have that. I have always spoken about a whole-of-government response to the housing and homelessness crisis. I have raised it with the Minister at the Joint Committee on Housing Planning and Local Government. We need the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to bring in the regulation for the short-term letting platform from a tourism point of view, but there is no interest there. Where is the whole-of-government response? It does not exist, yet the Minister of State is looking to us for plans to resolve the housing crisis.

The latest homeless figures are 3,226 children, a 74% increase since June 2016, and 1,733 families, a 61% increase. At the same time here in Dublin, last night, there were 9,512 properties available on one short-term letting platform. Out of those, 4,790 were a whole house or apartment. What will happen this Christmas? There will be 3,826 children living in hotel rooms while 4,790 entire homes or apartments will be available for tourists or visitors. It is not rocket science. The mathematics are quite simple. That is one of the solutions we have been working on with the Government over recent years that has not been taken into account.

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