Legislation requiring planning permission for short term lets could see to the volume of lets “fall off a cliff”, an Oireachtas committee was told on Wednesday.
A new register for short-term lets, such as those advertised on Airbnb and other platforms, is set to come into effect from May 20th, 2026, underpinned by updated planning permission rules.
Eoghan O’Mara Walsh, the chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC), told a meeting of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment that the regulations will see the volume of Airbnb-style accommodations fall to “virtually none because of the planning stipulations”.
“On May 19th, we are going to have tens of thousands of properties available to let, and on May 20th, that is going to fall off a cliff,” he said, warning that the impact could be “very damaging to regional Ireland”.
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“It is critical that regional Ireland does not lose thousands of holiday homes and self catering properties which have been a staple of the Irish tourism product for decades.”
The head of the tourism lobby group admitted the sector is “completely unregulated” at the moment and that specific numbers for the volume of short-term lets are not available.
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He welcomed the planned implementation of the register but called for a nine-month grace period in which short-term lessors would be able to register regardless of whether they had planning permission.
Mr O’Mara said no modelling had been done on the number of properties which would be returned to the long-term rental or housing sectors following the reforms.
In a previous meeting of the committee in December, the assistant secretary general in the Department of Housing, Paul Hogan, pointed to Fáilte Ireland data which suggested just 1.3 per cent of short-term lets in the State were compliant with planning regulations as of May 2025.
Mr O’Mara – who was joined by Anne O’Donoghue, ITIC’s deputy chairwoman – also called for a “step change” in tourism funding to help the sector amid “wafer thin” margins during the meeting.
Speaking while US president Donald Trump took to the stage in Davos, the ITIC chief addressed uncertainty in the sector caused by its exposure to the North American market.
“Tourism is uniquely vulnerable to external shocks,” he said. “There is also a need to market diversify” with concerns in the sector on its dependence on these markets.
He said more funding is needed to support this diversification, and pointed to the passenger cap on Dublin Airport as an impediment for the sector.
Chairing the committee, Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor said “as a Government TD” he was “embarrassed” by how long it has taken to address the passenger cap.
He noted that the DAA had been invited to come before the committee previously but that they had not done so, and described “issues” in the DAA as “regrettable”.
Responding to questions on the topic, the ITIC chief said the restrictions on the airport amount to “shooting ourselves in the foot” and that the removal of the cap “cannot happen quick enough” as the Irish tourism sector is losing business.
