The figures are stark. Take Mallow for example, on Thursday morning there were 28 properties listed to rent on Airbnb, but just two to rent on Daft.ie. In Youghal, there were 39 on Airbnb and just one on Daft, in Killarney there were 199 on Airbnb and just two on Daft. In Dungarvan, there were 49 on Airbnb and just six on Daft. 

Imagine you are a family with young children, renting your home, and you received a notice to quit from the landlord, or imagine you are a couple in your 30s, still living in your childhood boxrooms. You are desperate to find somewhere to rent, and look on Daft to find there is nothing. But you look on Airbnb and there is property after property available.

How heartbreaking, frustrating and enraging must that be? There are tens of thousands of people living this situation right now. We often talk about figures and statistics in housing, but we must always bring it back to the real life human experience, and the stark social devastation.

The figures show 34,000 properties let on a short-term basis across the country in 2025, while almost two thirds (22,000) of these were entire properties. The 2020-2024 Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition government accepted that short-term lets were having significant impacts on the housing crisis, and committed to take action. 

In July 2022, the then minister for housing, Darragh O Brien outlined this when he said: “We know that significant numbers of properties have been withdrawn from the long-term rental market in recent years and diverted for use as short-term lettings, negatively impacting on the supply and availability of private residential rental accommodation with associated knock-on implications for rental prices”. He was absolutely right. 

The Government introduced planning requirements that aimed to return at least 12,000 short-term let properties to the long-term rental market. However, just like so much policy in this country, it was never properly enforced. The short-term lets continued. 

Now we have a new minister for housing, in a new Fianna Fáil/Fine Gael coalition which also promised action on short-term lets, announcing in April last year the requirement of a new register and planning permission for short-term lets in towns with a population greater than 10,000. I pointed out at the time that many smaller towns and rural areas were not going to be subject to the restrictions as a result, leaving the housing crisis to worsen in rural areas. 

What I didn’t realise was that this minimal restriction was going to be weakened even further. And so we hear this week the Government has rolled back on its commitments and the restrictions will only apply to towns over 20,000.

There is a contradiction at the heart of Government policy, and not for the first time. The Government’s Housing Plan makes a clear commitment that “planning permission for new short-term lets will be generally precluded in cities and large towns, ensuring that homes are available for residential use where the need is greatest”. 

The definition of a large town is a town with a population of 10,000 or greater. So their Housing Plan is barely three months launched and is already being ditched. I wonder how the minister for housing feels about his policy being dismissed so quickly?

The failure to act on short-term lets has had a particular negative impact on our Gaeltacht communities, with knock-on consequences for the future of our language. Tá an ghéarchéim tithíochta na ceantair Ghaeltachta ag cur todhchaí na Gaeilge mar theanga bheo i mbaol. 

The communities in An Rinn, Co. Waterford, An Daingean, Co. Kerry, Muscrai, Oilean Chleire, Co Cork and Connemara, Co Galway as well as other Gaeltacht areas are facing an existential crisis as there is literally nowhere for young people growing up there to live. 

In Connemara, for example there were 573 properties to rent on Airbnb and just 10 on Daft.ie while in Dingle there were 203 properties to rent on Airbnb and not a single one to rent on Daft. They need the clampdown on short-term lets to include such areas.

The Government has capitulated to parish pump politics. Rather than governing by evidence-based policy we have governing by back door deals. This is policy being influenced and determined not by housing needs, but by the consequences of the price paid for a return to power of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.

Independent TD Michael Healy-Rae went out on social media celebrating his influence on the Government’s u-turn, ensuring proposed restrictions were neutralised before they are even enforced.

It has been a tough week for those looking to find a home to rent. First the gutting of short-term let restrictions, then the rental bill, which will allow for the increasing of rents to market rates in between tenancies and every six years. 

This Government claims to be doing all it can to address the housing crisis. The evidence says different. We need a radical change and emergency action in our housing policies, like we saw during covid when short-term lets were switched back to rent, and homelessness fell, including using some short-term lets. 

This is an emergency and such action is needed alongside the delivery of social and affordable housing at massive levels, and to treat housing as a home and human right.

• Rory Hearne TD is the Social Democrats spokesperson for Housing, Local Government and the Gaeltacht, author of GAFFS; Why No One Can Get a House and What We Can Do About it