AirBnB is such a pointless distraction. It’s a shame to see a government minister sucked into it.
Poor little Housing Minister being prevented from doing something he totally and definitely wants to do by the big bad commission.
The reality of course is that government have never had any interest in enforcing the law on Airbnb, which is why they left it up to local authorities in the first place and then didn’t resource them.
They only made this move to change enforcement because last year Sinn Féin introduced a bill to [require Airbnb and other short term let platforms to require evidence that any property had the relevant permission](https://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/63648), if they failed to do so they could be fined.
In response Government quickly introduced their own bill to give Failte Ireland (bizarrely) the power to create a register and enforce the existing law on short term rentals.
That has now been caught up in a Commission process – which the Minister would have known about beforehand, but it now very upset to learn exists.
If Sinn Féin’s bill had been allowed to proceed we wouldn’t have this issue. Airbnb would have to do the work of making sure people have the correct permission, and if they don’t AirBnB get a nice big fine.
The advantage of the SF approach is that it didn’t require setting up any additional administrative scheme – merely enforcing existing domestic law. What triggers a TRIS notification can be hard to determine, but previous similar requirements (e.g. enforcing existing domestic licensing arrangements on online gambling providers) have not required a notification.
Can councils crackdown at a local level?
Haven’t other EU cities already had crackdowns on ABnB!
Thought he was great on Taskmaster.
honestly, whats stopping you from doing it?, why do you need the eu commission to do it for you?
Fuck airbnb
Id love to burn them all down like the Welsh and Scots did to holiday homes in the 80s
Fuck the government too
Airbnb has a lot of benefits IMO. We need tourists to come and spend money. With the price of hotels in Ireland we will lose a lot of visitors if we drastically cut down on Airbnbs. I know we also need more long term rentals, but building more houses is the only way to meet all needs.
This is not fucking rocket science. Enforcement of our current planning law shouldn’t take much extra resources. Just download the app and cross reference with publicly available planning data. If you really need evidence, just book a stay. Bonus you get a short holiday too. Give me a 6 month contract with a local authority, I could decimate the illegal Airbnb market on my own.
Make an example of 5-10 of these criminals and the rest will fall in line fairly quickly. This is the low hanging fruit of our housing crisis. If the political will was there it could be solved in a matter of weeks.
9 comments
AirBnB is such a pointless distraction. It’s a shame to see a government minister sucked into it.
Poor little Housing Minister being prevented from doing something he totally and definitely wants to do by the big bad commission.
The reality of course is that government have never had any interest in enforcing the law on Airbnb, which is why they left it up to local authorities in the first place and then didn’t resource them.
They only made this move to change enforcement because last year Sinn Féin introduced a bill to [require Airbnb and other short term let platforms to require evidence that any property had the relevant permission](https://www.sinnfein.ie/contents/63648), if they failed to do so they could be fined.
In response Government quickly introduced their own bill to give Failte Ireland (bizarrely) the power to create a register and enforce the existing law on short term rentals.
That has now been caught up in a Commission process – which the Minister would have known about beforehand, but it now very upset to learn exists.
The delay was always going to be longer than 3 months because the TRIS directive explicitly states that the delay will be 12 months where the commission proposes an instrument in the same area. The domestic Bill was approved for drafting [in December 2022](https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/f5707-short-term-tourist-letting-register-to-be-established-through-new-legislation/) a month after the commission [proposed its own instrument](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM:2022:571:FIN). This can’t have been an unexpected result, it is laid out in black and white in the TRIS directive.
If Sinn Féin’s bill had been allowed to proceed we wouldn’t have this issue. Airbnb would have to do the work of making sure people have the correct permission, and if they don’t AirBnB get a nice big fine.
The advantage of the SF approach is that it didn’t require setting up any additional administrative scheme – merely enforcing existing domestic law. What triggers a TRIS notification can be hard to determine, but previous similar requirements (e.g. enforcing existing domestic licensing arrangements on online gambling providers) have not required a notification.
Can councils crackdown at a local level?
Haven’t other EU cities already had crackdowns on ABnB!
Thought he was great on Taskmaster.
honestly, whats stopping you from doing it?, why do you need the eu commission to do it for you?
Fuck airbnb
Id love to burn them all down like the Welsh and Scots did to holiday homes in the 80s
Fuck the government too
Airbnb has a lot of benefits IMO. We need tourists to come and spend money. With the price of hotels in Ireland we will lose a lot of visitors if we drastically cut down on Airbnbs. I know we also need more long term rentals, but building more houses is the only way to meet all needs.
This is not fucking rocket science. Enforcement of our current planning law shouldn’t take much extra resources. Just download the app and cross reference with publicly available planning data. If you really need evidence, just book a stay. Bonus you get a short holiday too. Give me a 6 month contract with a local authority, I could decimate the illegal Airbnb market on my own.
Make an example of 5-10 of these criminals and the rest will fall in line fairly quickly. This is the low hanging fruit of our housing crisis. If the political will was there it could be solved in a matter of weeks.