Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The figures the Senator gave are shocking. To have 60 properties in Kinsale is incredible. I will provide some background and come back to him on the supplementary question on the fuel rebate.

To provide some background, legislative reforms to regulate the short-term letting sector through the planning code in areas designated as rent pressure zones, RPZs, were introduced under the Planning and Development Act 2000 (Exempted Development) (No. 2) Regulations 2019 which came into effect on 1 July 2019. The aim of the legislation was to return much-needed accommodation being used for short-term letting purposes in designated RPZs to the long-term rental market, thereby increasing supply in the short-term rental market and helping to stabilise rents in those areas.

Under the short-term letting legislation, homesharing, that is, the letting of a room or rooms in a person's principal place of residence, is generally permissible on an unrestricted basis. However, where a person owns a property in a RPZ which is not his or her principal private residence and lets it for short-term letting purposes, he or she is required to apply for change of use planning permission unless the property already has a specific planning permission to be used for tourism or short-term letting purposes. Such change of use in planning permission is not guaranteed in areas of high housing demand.

Given that short-term letting accommodation is technically tourism-related accommodation, and the regulation of such accommodation is more appropriate to the tourism sector, the Government's Housing for All plan contains a specific action, action 20.4, to develop new regulatory controls requiring short-term and holiday lets to register with Fáilte Ireland with a view to ensuring that houses are used to best effect in areas of housing need. This will take the regulation of short-term letting accommodation out of the planning code.

The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media, and Fáilte Ireland have lead responsibility for developing and delivering the new legislation in this regard, with input from my Department given its involvement in framing the pre-existing short-term letting legislation. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has engaged with the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sports and Media to progress this action. A number of meetings have been held between officials of the Departments and Fáilte Ireland, and further engagement is expected to take place in the near future.

Funding was allocated in budget 2022 to Fáilte Ireland, which has been tasked with the design and implementation of the new short-term lettings registration system, which requires significant investment in supporting IT infrastructure. The agency is currently recruiting staff to work on this project. The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media is also scoping out the legislative provisions that will be required to underpin the new registration system with a view to the necessary provisions being enacted in the current year and the new Fáilte Ireland short-term letting registration system being operational from January 2023.

As Senator Lombard has suggested, an underlying objective of the new registration system will be to ensure that an adequate level of private rental accommodation can be provided in towns like Kinsale, in particular in urban areas of high housing demand, and that such accommodation is not overly diverted to the short-term letting sector at the expense of local people seeking long-term rental accommodation. In effect, it is about achieving an appropriate mix of private rental accommodation and short-term letting accommodation, having regard to the housing needs in the area concerned.

Once again I thank the Senator for raising this important issue. I look forward to the introduction of the new legislative provisions in this regard and the positive impact that they will have for the long-term rental sector, in particular, as I have outlined, in those urban areas of high housing demand and need.