Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The proposed Short Term Tourism Letting (STTL) Bill that will provide the statutory basis for the establishment of the STTL register is currently the subject of ongoing engagement with the EU Commission in accordance with the Technical Regulations Information System (TRIS) EU Directive 2015/1535.

The TRIS process requires EU Member States to notify the Commission of any draft technical regulations concerning products and information society services before they are adopted in national law. Such a notification triggers a standstill period during which the proposed Bill cannot be enacted.

On 22 March 2023, the EU Commission extended the standstill period until 22 December 2023 as it considered that the STTL Bill concerns a matter covered in part by the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on data collection and sharing relating to short-term accommodation rental services and amending Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 of 7 November 2022 (EU STR).

On 15 November the European Parliament and Council reached a provisional political agreement on the EU STR proposal. It is understood that the proposal could be endorsed and formally adopted by both institutions by end March 2024.

This political agreement provides clarity as to the provisions within this new EU STR regulation. My Department has engaged extensively with the Commission in relation to the alignment of Ireland’s proposed STTL Bill and the EU STR once adopted. As part of this engagement, officials from my Department and from Fáilte Ireland met with representatives of the Commission in Brussels on 11 December 2023 and then, on 15 December, provided a formal response to the Commission’s communication of 22 March 2023.

On 9 February 2024, the Commission responded to note that the principles outlined in Ireland’s formal response appear to go in the right direction to ensure consistency with the principles of the EU STR Regulation but that some further consideration may be required to ensure complete alignment. My officials are due to meet with the Commission again the week commencing the 19 February to discuss its response and observations and to provide further clarifications on the proposed approach.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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222. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the extent to which provision is being made to ensure that the hotel and leisure industry is adequately prepared for the tourist season both in terms of staff and accommodation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [7363/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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Recruitment and retention of staff in tourism, while showing improvement in 2023, continues to be a significant challenge for the tourism sector.

My Department and Fáilte Ireland continue to support the tourism industry to build the talent and skills it needs to remain profitable, competitive and resilient. A key priority in this regard is to support tourism businesses to adopt quality employment practices to ensure that the sector is recognised as a desirable and rewarding career choice, and that individuals working in it can continue to develop their own expertise, knowledge and skills to build a long-term and successful career.

The latest Fáilte Ireland research indicates that the recruitment and retention of staff within tourism, while still a challenge, has improved over the last year. My Department and Fáilte Ireland are working with industry and across Government to ensure a coordinated approach to addressing labour and skills shortages. This includes engagement with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (DETE) to ensure that the current two-week processing time for work permits is maintained and to consider submissions made by industry for the review of the work permit occupations lists. For employees, hourly rates of pay have improved, compensation for working unsocial hours has become more common and job security has grown.

When we look at the wider economy and the particular set of challenges facing the tourism industry, it is clear that a collective and concerted multi-stakeholder approach to tackling these challenges is required and that is the approach my department and the government will continue to pursue.

Fáilte Ireland continues to support and promote employment and career progression in the industry by continuously developing and broadening the “Employer Excellence” programme, the online learning management system “LearniFI”, the tourismcareers.ie website and the Transition Year Work Placement programme. The “Employer Excellence” programme, for instance, is now open to all tourism businesses with five or more employees and the LeariFI platform facilitated the upskilling of more than 4,000 employees in key areas critical for business success.

Fáilte Ireland has conducted a number of Accommodation Audits to establish a baseline on existing tourism accommodation capacity for local authorities in each destination and region. This includes a quality and gap analysis for additional accommodation development on a county-by-county basis along with the projected accommodation requirements. Additional capacity supply growth projections have been identified for all counties based on best estimates of demand recovery to 2030, current gaps in the market by location and type, and changing consumer preferences for accommodation categories. These projections recommend a phased pipeline of new supply in line with location specific demand drivers based on identified gaps in the market. Full audits have been completed for 18 counties to date and have been issued to the relevant local authorities as they shape their own tourism accommodation strategies.

This year, Fáilte Ireland intends to secure services for the development of a monitoring system to track the pipeline of tourist accommodation in Ireland focussing on planning, construction commencement and opening phases of development. This will allow Fáilte Ireland to pinpoint challenges that exist in terms of the development of tourism accommodation and to measure the impact arising.

It is recognised that use of tourist accommodation to support the Government’s response to the humanitarian crisis has impacted the sector. The Government has agreed that a move from an emergency response to a more mainstreamed approach is appropriate, including through a reduced reliance on serviced accommodation, along with the development of other sources of accommodation such as refurbished properties, rapid builds and modular accommodation as part of the overall response to this humanitarian crisis, and the unprecedented numbers of people seeking asylum and refuge in Ireland.

My colleague, Minister O'Gorman, the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, will be bringing a revised white paper to Cabinet regarding the provision of additional accommodation, whether State-owned or State-developed, to add to the existing accommodation stock for International Protection applicants. Additionally, his officials are engaging across Government on this issue via the interdepartmental Accommodation Working Group led by the Department of the Taoiseach and it is hoped that this approach will, over time, help to reduce the reliance on tourism accommodation.