Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Thank you very much. First of all, could I start off by welcoming the stuttering group from Ireland?

I want to welcome them warmly. They want to create awareness around stuttering. They have an event on in the audiovisual room at 2 p.m.

I want to declare quickly an interest in what I will speak on, namely self-catering in Ireland, and I also want to highlight that I own a guest house. But when I speak I do so on behalf of the constituents I am here to represent and who have been continuously on to me about this matter.

We have a housing crisis, that is very clear, and we have to get more supply, that is very clear, but targeting people in the short-term letting is a flawed tactic. Up until now, operators of short-term lets in rent pressure zones needed to apply for planning permission to run their business but mostly, when they apply, they are refused. People who are short-term letting are more likely to leave their homes and properties lying idle for a family member or sell it rather than rent it out long term. They do not want to go from short term to long term.

For example, Killarney is full up at the moment but it is not at capacity because of tourism or short term lets but because a lot of free bed spaces in the town are taken up with people seeking asylum and refuge here. Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that but it is putting a serious strain on services. For instance, Dr. Gary Stack was on Radio Kerry recently explaining the pressures that is putting on the medical service to those in the town.

The Government has said that it will regulate and manage the short-term lets and it will get more properties on a short-term basis back into the long-term rental market. This is not going to happen. The Government is actually instructing local authority enforcement officers to go out and frighten people into applying for planning which will not be granted and that the properties will simply lie idle as these operators, some of whom have operated in the short-term rental market for over 30 years, will not rent out long term. The Government is trying its best to tell these people, who have worked so hard, saved up, paid for their houses or properties, got a mortgage and tried to make an income from it, what to do with their own property and that it is to be rented long term. This will have the opposite effect entirely. It is so wrongful for the Government to think that it can force people to do something with the property that they own. We are living in a free society after all. These properties did not fall out of the sky to these people. They worked with the sweat off their brow and they broke their backs in many cases to build, maintain and own their properties. And now the Government thinks that it will dictate to them and tell them what they are to do with it? It will not happen.

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