Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, for coming to the Chamber on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, whose remit is housing specifically. We all know it is an issue and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, is working on it, and possibly the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, as well. I wanted to invite the Minister to the House to ask him what we can do about ensuring that all Airbnbs are registered and have applied for change of use if they have gone from a long-term living property to Airbnb short-term rental, as is the statutory requirement.I draw the Minister of State's attention to figures I gleaned from Airbnb and Daft.ie.I put in 16 October and looked up Ennistymon, one of the closest towns to where I live. There were 627 places for Airbnb but in all of County Clare, there were only 36 places to rent.

To be clear, Airbnb has a very important part to play in the tourism sector but at the same time, we need to find a balance between people having places to live and tourists having places to stay. What we saw happening in County Clare was that businesses could not stay open because they could not get the staff. They could not get the staff because the staff had no place to live. Airbnb, as a concept, works. I see best practice in other jurisdictions and even in Dublin, where we have seen some restrictions brought in - at the very least, to make sure they are all legal. That balances the books a bit more.

If, in many cases, second and third homes are being used as short-term rentals for two or three nights all year-round - there were 627 cases in County Clare - then we are doing a disservice to people on the housing list who are looking for a place to live. We have a huge housing crisis. We have a lot to do around building new houses, but we all know there are thousands of houses that could be homes if they were not Airbnbs.

As I said, Airbnb, as a concept, works, especially if it is a room in your house. I know the company itself is not obliged to ensure any house it is advertising is legally an Airbnb. Maybe people do not know, but if you are advertising your house as an Airbnb, you must have done so by getting permission from county council. What does the Minister of State hope to do about this? I have raised the issue for the last few years, since I became a Senator. It is a huge issue where I live and I am sure we are not unique. If you do not have any Airbnb restrictions, then you see a serious problem with a lack of houses. I would like to see that dealt with.

On rent pressure zones, RPZs, I have engaged with the director of services for housing, with many housing bodies and with my colleagues in the Green Party on this. It is not a made up issue that I think we will resolve overnight. The current algorithm the Government is using for RPZs is not fit for purpose. For example, County Clare has no RPZs and yet we have a huge housing issue. The two things are the rent pressure zones and the algorithm not being fit for purpose. It might work in very high-density places, such as areas of Dublin, but if you take the whole of County Clare and put it into the same algorithm, it does not represent what is happening on the ground in towns like Ennis and Ennistymon, which might be very popular places and face huge demand. Without the rent pressure zones being spread out across the county, we are failing to turn many houses into homes.

On Airbnbs, the company itself and the list of Airbnbs online, we need to get someone to look at that and to enforce the rules most people are obeying. Some people are doing it by the book. If we can get that done, maybe some people might think that they should not be doing Airbnb and that perhaps they should be renting it out as a home, to give people a home.