In six years, Fingal has issued 68 warning letters to people operating short-term lets without planning permission

Since 2019, Fingal County Council has issued 68 letters of warning to property owners engaging in short-term letting, a council official said.

Out of the 68 warnings sent out in the six years since legislation was passed to regulate the short-term letting sector, Fingal has closed 39 of these files, Matthew McAleese, Fingal’s director of planning and strategic infrastructure said on Monday.

Those files were closed due to compliance as a result of legal proceedings taken by the council’s Planning Enforcement Section, McAleese said in response to a motion tabled by Solidarity Councillor John Burtchaell.

Burtchaell had put forward a motion at the council’s monthly meeting on Monday, asking that the council develop a comprehensive enforcement strategy to address short-term lets – homes or apartments rented out for less than 14 days – that don’t have planning permission.

Planning permission is needed to run a short-term let in a rent-pressure zone. All of Fingal is classified as a rent-pressure zone, according to the council’s Planning Enforcement section.

Fingal’s Planning Enforcement section, in 2023, carried out a comprehensive investigation of websites advertising short-term lettings across the county to identify unauthorised developments, McAleese wrote in his report to Burtchaell.

Enforcement also regularly monitors online activity, McAleese said. But Burtchaell did not seem impressed. 

Sixty-eight warnings is a little more than 11 letters per year, Burtchaell said, “which seems very low in the context of the numbers of advertised short-term lets”.

On Sunday, Burtchaell said he saw about 40 full houses or apartments being let in the Dublin 15 area alone.

The council is depending too much on the public to monitor this when really what is needed is more enforcement from state bodies, like the council, he said.

Labour Councillor James Humphreys said it is ironic that Fáilte Ireland is the body that has been chosen to monitor short-term lettings.

Fáilte, the national tourism development authority, will be running a register for all short-term accommodation from May 2026, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Patrick O'Donovan told the Dáil back in May.

But Fáilte doesn't have planning or enforcement powers, Humphreys said on Monday.

Overseeing the registration of these properties is a task that should’ve gone to local authorities, he said. “Funding should’ve been given to the council to pursue this.”

The council is proactive in this space, but it is a manual process and quite labour intensive, McAleese said. “But that’s the legislation that we’ve been given.”

Currently, the most effective tool is issuing warning letters, he said. “It gives people an opportunity to respond to that, and as you can see there from the stats, that has resulted in successful outcomes for the council.”

The motion was agreed.