Letters to the Editor: Short-term lettings crackdown
Tourism Minister Catherine Martin has called for a crackdown on short-term lets.
When is a tourism minister not a tourism minister? (‘Minister expects Europe to allow Ireland to start crackdown on short-term lets within months’, , March 19).
The answer is obvious to people like me who have devoted decades to building up a successful business offering self-catering holidays in Ireland — in West Cork in my case.
What sort of tourism minister actually champions legislation that will damage the tourism industry. Step forward Tourism Minister Catherine Martin.
The minister wants to crack down on short-term lets because she believes, along with Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien, that this legislation will alleviate the housing crisis in Ireland. She claims that out of an estimated 34,000 properties offering short-term lets, up to 10,700 could potentially become available for long term housing requirements. On what basis does she make this claim? There is no evidence to support her claim.
What this legislation could end up doing is to decimate the self-catering sector in Ireland at a time when accommodation for tourists is needed more than ever.
In the town of Kenmare, which has 2,500 residents, there already has been a loss of 796 beds from self-catering properties and 1,384 beds in total (including hotels) due to Government contracts. This is estimated to cost the businesses in town €11m annually that they would expect to receive from tourists. The Short-Term Tourism Letting Bill will only add to that loss.
This year my business, Cottages for Couples, expects to bring 6,000 visitors to West Cork. Based on Fáilte Ireland data, this is worth €2m year round income to the local economy of Skibbereen. This is people spending in restaurants, pubs, shops, and visitor attractions. Does Ms Martin seek to promote this, which is surely her job? No, is the answer. She wants to crack down on tourism, which seems perverse.
There is now an urgent need for the Government to re-think its approach. Minister Martin promised, in December, to provide planning guidelines before the legislation is enacted in Ireland.
Historically, Ireland has often followed England in regard to legislation. In February this year, England announced its approach to the same issue of regulating short-term rentals, stating that existing businesses would not have to apply for planning permission. A similar approach in Ireland would protect the thousands of self-catering operators, like me, who provide the backbone of Ireland’s tourism industry.
Events on the political front here in recent days, bring Robert Redford’s character Bill McKay in the film , to mind.
When Bill finally realises a long-held ambition and gets himself elected to the US Senate, he eases into the seat behind his desk. He then addresses the staff in his office thus: “What do we do now?” Quite.
Permit me to differ with the statement by the European Council president Charles Michel: “If we want peace, we must prepare for war” (March 18). Surely if we want peace, we must work for peace?
While Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was wrong, it was not unprovoked. Surely we must do all in our power to initiate peace talks?
Our Government is clearly not fulfilling its obligation under Article 29 of our Constitution, to affirm our “adherence to the principle of the pacific settlement of international disputes by international arbitration”.
Before An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar leaves office, could he and his Government recognise the State of Palestine and break with the wall of silence that envelops the European Union on this issue?
With the continuing grievous loss of life following the October 7 atrocity, Israeli military-induced starvation, and impending ethnic cleansing, it is past time that the Irish Government reconsiders its decision not to row in behind South Africa, Brazil, and others at the International Court of Justice.
Finally, he should call in one of the relevant government officials and ask the question: Is Shannon Airport being used to transport US weapons to Israel? If the answer is yes, Ireland may be complicit in the war crimes taking place in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gaza, and every statement issued by the Irish government needs to be re-examined.
Helen McEntee is a good minister for justice. She has experience aplenty. But at this altitude, it isn’t enough.
There are all sorts of reasons why the hate speech legislation should be abandoned. Here are a few.
- No crime should be defined vaguely. Defamation Act and the Incitement to Hatred Act cover this area to the best of a modern republic’s ability.
- I hate to be cynical. But the reform of our criminal law and political approval are oil and water. Never the twain doth mix. Dessie O’Malley and Michael McDowell — ministers for justice both. Their legislative pens could not glean their teeming brains. But they restrained themselves. There are many things one wants to criminalise. Very few things should be criminalised in a republic. When power presents, freedom and authority, depend upon the licence we give to our enemies. It was always thus.
- A thought experiment. This concept of hate speech. I say the Provos were murdering scumbags pulling strings in Sinn Féin. A beleaguered “minority” swing down from the trees. “Former political prisoners” exonerated by the Good Friday Agreement are up to their eyeballs with money and lawyers. They go to An Garda Síochána and make a criminal allegation. As Senator Rónan Mullen has observed, the process in itself can become the punishment. I am now the subject of a fatuous, bogus, opportunistic, politically-motivated criminal investigation. This is not a far-fetched scenario. And our Attorney General should consider it.
- I hate to be simple.
My intellectual vanity knows no bounds. But here is the phrase that resonates again. Senator McDowell has the copyright — "if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it".
Our Irish Government seems determined to bring Ireland ever closer to participating in unjustified wars and ending Irish neutrality by removing the triple lock which specifies that UN approval is necessary to send more than 12 Irish soldiers on overseas missions. Such a decision goes against the wishes of the vast majority of the Irish people who value active Irish neutrality.
Between 2001 and 2016, up to 226 Irish soldiers served in Afghanistan in Nato-led missions. These soldiers included several members of the Army Ranger Wing, but it is not clear in what specific roles they served in. The Afghan war has been a disaster for the people of Afghanistan.
In 2022 the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) ruled that the court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, can proceed with a formal investigation into atrocities allegedly committed during the armed conflict in Afghanistan by US armed forces and CIA personnel.
In 2020, the Australian Defence Force released findings from a four-year inquiry which found credible evidence that Australian special forces soldiers unlawfully killed 39 people during the Afghan war.
In December 2022 the British government announced an inquiry into allegations that SAS soldiers murdered scores of unarmed people during night raids in Afghanistan. This follows BBC Panorama revelations, in July 2022, that one SAS unit killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances.
Conor Gallagher’s book, , reveals that an Irish soldier serving in Afghanistan helped “to track down and kill Taliban bombers. This included assisting US forces in directing airstrikes against targets responsible for IED attacks.” Irish soldiers should not be involved in such missions.
With our history of centuries of colonial abuse, including starvation, we must strengthen our neutrality, not abandon it.
In discussing Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, Tom Dunne mentions The Beatles but only in passing — (‘God only knows about Brian Wilson’, , March 21).
However to discuss these groups at their respective peaks, as Tom was doing, means explaining in detail how the other band was involved.
Paul McCartney in particular took it that The Beatles were in direct competition with The Beach Boys to the extent that is at least partly a response to .
As for ‘God Only Knows’, McCartney said it was the greatest song ever written.
However, Wilson took this as negative and inhibiting in that it meant, in effect, “you are never going to write a better song”.
![<p>'Despite the fact that the Irish Science Teachers’ Association, the ASTI and the Irish Universities Association representatives on the NCCA Biology, Chemistry, and Physics have publicly dissociated from the flawed model [in the senior cycle curriculum plan], all of these concerns have been ignored by the Department of Education.' </p>](/cms_media/module_img/9742/4871127_9_augmentedSearch_PA-49006269_1_.jpg "<p>'Despite the fact that the Irish Science Teachers’ Association, the ASTI and the Irish Universities Association representatives on the NCCA Biology, Chemistry, and Physics have publicly dissociated from the flawed model [in the senior cycle curriculum plan], all of these concerns have been ignored by the Department of Education.' </p>")
