Sir, – The Draft National Planning Statement for Short-Term Letting published this week is a wolf in sheep’s clothing (“Ireland to introduce some of Europe’s ‘strictest’ rules on short-term lets, says Minister,” June 16th).
While many people in towns with fewer than 20,000 people have been operating for seven years or more may be celebrating, this plan precludes many people who have set up in recent years and who have perhaps brought a disused building back to life or converted an empty shop to an Airbnb.
Under this plan, people who have been operating for seven years or less, in communities with fewer than 20,000 people, will still have to apply for planning permission to operate short-term lets – assuming they do not already have it – and most don’t.
So what does this mean and how will it affect rural tourism? It means that to continue in business, many property owners who never considered long-term rentals, will have to shell out thousands of euro with no guarantee they can still continue in business.
RM Block
A survey by the Irish Self Catering Federation found that if forced to close, 93 per cent of their members would not change to long-term rentals. In my part of the country, west Cork, the seaside town of Baltimore now benefits from year-round tourism as a result of holiday homeowners renting out their homes outside the summer months.
If you were a holiday homeowner, would you go to the hassle and expense of applying for planning permission? Of course not. So Baltimore will lose thousands of euro of much needed tourism revenue. This will be repeated across the country and Ireland will lose thousands of self-catering properties.
So where will tourists stay? In hotels? Possibly, if not given over to asylum seekers or refugees. Anecdotal evidence suggests American tourists are already opting to go to Scotland as they can’t rely on finding guaranteed Irish accommodation.
. This plan does not balance tourism needs with housing needs. It will destroy tourism in rural Ireland without creating any noticeable increase in long-term rental accommodation. Back to the drawing board, I’m afraid. – Yours, etc,
PETER WARBURTON,
Cottages for Couples,
Skibbereen,
Co Cork.
