Failure to properly short-terms lets on AirBnb could lead to anti-tourism protests like those seen on continental Europe, the Labour Party has claimed.
Documents circulated among officials within the Department of Housing noted that in certain hotspots, locals have tired of over tourism and protests have erupted.
Given the severity of Irelands housing crisis, civil servants fear something similar could happen in the Republic unless action is taken to restrict short-term lets.
On The Pat Kenny Show , Labour housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan said he was not surprised by the briefing.
We are an outlier in terms of short-term lets, we have very poor regulation at the moment, he said.
We are being dragged at the moment, kicking and screaming by the European Union to this because of an EU directive thats mandating us to do it.
An Airbnb App on an iPhone smart phone. Picture by: Alamy.com.
Deputy Sheehan added the State must do everything it can to ramp up the supply of homes available to renters.
No one is saying that restoring AirBnBs to the private rental market is the panacea for the housing crisis, he said.
It is part of a suite of solutions and it needs to be considered in the round.
Obviously, we need more concrete data in relation to this but the fact of the matter is it could possibly bring back anything up to 100,000 units.
Tourists' needs
The Limerick City TD said there is a place for AirBnB but that it needs to be regulated.
We have a deficit, a housing deficit as we know, he said.
Rents have gone up to over �2,000 now on average, so we just need to rebalance things a bit.
Deputy Sheehan said tourism is an important part of the economy, but locals housing needs must take priority.
We have seen protests in different jurisdictions and we need to do whatever we can to ensure that we dont have protests, he said.
Tourism is very important to us as well and thats why we need to have a well- regulated AirBnB sector and a well-regulated private rental market& and a minority of them are not allowed to exploit the crisis that we have in the private rental market.
Main image: Houses along the coast of the Dingle Peninsula. Picture by: Alamy.com.
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