Four times as many properties are available as short-term lettings as homes on the private rental market at the start of this month, renter support charity Threshold has said.
It called on the Government to ensure new short-term letting rules due to come into force later this year are “backed by enforcement”.
Threshold said more than 8,600 homes were being advertised as short-term lets nationwide in March, compared to just 2,100 homes listed on Daft.ie as private rentals.
The charity based its analysis on data harvested by Inside Airbnb, a US-based platform that uses publicly available information to highlight the impact of short-term rentals on communities.
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The short-term let figures were “conservative”, Threshold said, as they exclude hosts with only one listing on the assumption the advert could be that person’s own home. Properties not regarded as suitable as long-term accommodation, such as cabins, chalets, tiny homes, barns, campervans and yurts, were also excluded.
Property owners need planning permission or an exemption from their local authority to let out their dwelling or a room in it for less than 14 days at a time.
These regulations were introduced in 2019 in an attempt to bring more properties into the long-term rental market.
A new system for regulating short-term lets is due to take force from May 20th. This will “generally” forbid short-term lets in cities or towns with populations of 20,000 people or more. A short-term letting register is to be operated by Fáilte Ireland.
Threshold chief executive John-Mark McCafferty said the charity “welcomes” the upcoming register, but believes it must be “backed by enforcement”.
Compliance with the existing regime, requiring owners to secure permission to operate short-term lets, “appears to be extremely low in practice”, Threshold said, with just 425 such planning applications lodged between 2019 and last May.
Threshold said the Government’s decision last month to only restrict short-term lets in towns and cities with more than 20,000 people is “deeply concerning”, especially as “some of the most impacted areas, with few homes to rent [long-term], are in more rural areas”.
Minister for Tourism Peter Burke previously explained the change, saying the Government was trying to be “understanding” towards smaller towns popular with tourists but where tourist accommodation is lacking.
Minister for Children Norma Foley and Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae, both Kerry TDs, opposed plans to cap short-term lets for large towns, which would have affected Airbnb-style rentals in popular tourist towns such as Killarney.
The data referenced by Threshold found the ratio of short-term lets to long-term rental stock was particularly stark in counties welcoming high numbers of tourists.
The ratio was 30.6 to one in favour of short-term lets in Co Kerry, 28 to one in Co Clare, 24.5 to one in Co Donegal and 14 to one in Co Mayo.
Although Dublin was the county with the highest number of short-term lets recorded, at 2,406, this was just 2.3 times the number of long-term rentals advertised on Daft.
An Economic and Social Research Institute report last year found Airbnb listings were concentrated in tourist hot spots along the west coast, in inner-city Dublin and in Galway. It found no evidence linking increases in short-term let activity and falls in new rental tenancy registrations between 2019 and 2023.
Airbnb did not comment when approached.
