Aindrias Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail)
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379. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht for an update on her Department’s engagement with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in developing planning guidance with regard to the short-term letting sector on the planning permission requirements in respect of short-term letting properties; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [29728/24]

Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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The proposed Short Term Letting and Tourism (STLT) Bill will provide the statutory basis for the establishment of a register for Short Term Lets (STLs) in Ireland and for the implementation of the new EU Short Term Rental (STR) Regulation which was adopted by the EU on 11 April 2024. It is intended to bring the STLT General Scheme to Government for approval and publication and to then proceed with accelerated drafting of the Bill.

The Government's housing policy, “Housing for All”, has specifically committed, in the context of making more efficient use of existing housing stock, to developing regulatory controls with a view to ensuring that homes are used to best effect in areas of housing need. The STL register to be established under the STLT Bill will provide a framework within which planning authorities can identify those STL properties that are operating without the appropriate planning permission. Planning authorities will then be better able to adjudicate, in the context of local housing need, how applications for change of use planning permission will be dealt with.

There has been ongoing engagement between my Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) in relation to this legislation and the guidance to planning authorities that the DHLGH intends to publish in alignment with the publication of the STLT Bill.