New legislation aimed at limiting short-term lettings could have a 'devastating' impact on rural and coastal areas, TDs and senators fear.

Yesterday, members of the Oireachtas Tourism Committee met with Government representatives and officials from Fáilte Ireland to discuss the general scheme of the Registration of Short-Term Tourist Letting Bill 2022.

The Bill aims to establish a register of short-term letting properties, to be managed by Fáilte Ireland, which will require owners to get planning permission for change of use. Under the proposed laws, companies such as Airbnb would only be allowed to advertise properties that are registered with Fáilte Ireland.

Fáilte Ireland estimates there are 30,000 short-term letting properties being advertised online.

It says the move could force up to an estimated 12,000 short-term lets out of the market and into the long-term rental market.

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During the meeting, several TDs and senators raised concerns over the impact this legislation could have on short-term lettings in rural communities.

Fianna Fáil senator Malcolm Byrne said: "One of the concerns I have on this is that we're trying to solve some of the issues on the housing side and it's going to have a serious impact on what's happening on the tourism side." Mr Byrne also said that their worry is that "what we've been doing is going to be taking 12,000 short-term rental units out of the system".

"It's not as simple going in for rural planning as you may think and it is expensive. I think it will put off a lot of people from applying under this," he added.

Fine Gael Kerry TD Brendan Griffin expressed concerns over any potential requirements for all short-term lets to have planning permission, especially if it was accommodation that was never intended to be long-term lets.

He pointed to homes where owners may have converted a garage into a separate accommodation to rent out on Airbnb or other letting sites.

Questioned on this, Terry Sheridan of the Department of Housing said: "We are cognisant of these types of operations and we will be factoring our deliberations." He said he doesn't foresee issues with rural short-term lets obtaining planning permission.

Fine Gael TD Ciarán Cannon said: "I live in a small east Galway village, the village of Carrabane. Up until the advent of Airbnb, we never saw tourists in our community in any context from any country. When I go on my walk in my local forest, I meet people from Spain, Germany, Italy, recently Scotland, and without that Airbnb presence that was never going to happen.

"I think we need to be exceptionally careful in protecting that aspect of Irish tourism that has been, from my perspective, a most-welcome intervention on the part of obviously a big multinational but empowering rural communities across this country to showcase their homes, their communities and all the amenities."

Mr Sheridan said: "Our main concern is to try to increase the number of private rental properties.

"Bring back the short-term letting properties to the long-term market, primarily in the areas of greatest housing need. Our focus wouldn't be on the rural areas where there isn't the same housing demand."

Fáilte Ireland said that approximately 70% of the properties being advertised for short term lettings are entire apartments or houses.