It depends, in part, on whether the owners can prove they've been holiday lets for more than seven years – and whether planning enforcement noticed.
In August, Grattan Street Properties applied to Dublin City Council for a declaration that using two flats it owns on South William Street for short-term lets is "exempted development" – and so doesn't need planning permission.
"Both of these flats have been utilized for short term lets on the Airbnb platform for over seven years," the application says.
"These flats are unsuitable for normal residential purposes due to the nightlife on South William Street itself and on Drury Street which these two flats back onto," it said.
Council planners didn't agree.
Using homes for short-term stays is considered to materially alter the use of the property and so is development that needs permission, they said.
Grattan Street Properties has appealed the case.
But if it does apply for fresh planning permission in the months ahead, the Department of Housing's draft policy for dealing with such long-standing unauthorised short-term lets – those of more than seven years – suggests it would be able to take one of two paths.
If the property has been subject to council enforcement proceedings, the owners would have to apply for planning permission through the normal route – in which case, council planners in the city assess the application keeping in mind the housing crisis, and are likely although not certain, to refuse it.
If, on the other hand, the property has not come to the attention of planning enforcement, the owners would be able to benefit from a special planning process being put in place by the department.
In these cases, there will be a presumption in favour of granting planning permission, save for narrow grounds, says the draft planning statement issued over the summer – and the need for long-term housing in the area isn't one of them.
"This proposed approach will enable planning retention for a significant majority of long-term operators and will be administratively straightforward for applicants and local authorities," it says.
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing hasn't responded to a query sent on Wednesday asking why housing need won't be a consideration in these cases, particularly in cities such as Dublin.
How many full homes in Dublin have been unauthorised short-term let for more than seven years is, as yet, unclear. The Department of Housing and the Department of Enterprise said they did not have that data.
However, there are about 35,000 single properties rented out as short-term lets nationwide, 7,000 of which are in Dublin, Niamh McGuire, from the Department of Tourism, said last October.
Meanwhile, Fáilte Ireland has found that approximately 1.3% of all short-term-let properties in Ireland as of May 2025 had planning permission.
So when Failte Ireland's new register for short-term lets comes in – that's due to be 1 December – a massive number will likely want to try to get planning permission.
Operators will need planning permission to be on the new register, and they need to be on that register to get heads in beds, to be listed on online platforms – on Airbnb, Booking.com, GuestReady and the like.
Almost 17,000 properties are being fully used for short-term lets in areas of high housing demand, of which between 5,500 and 9,500 could be brought back into long-term residential use, said the draft National Planning Statement published in June.
Those figures were based on an Indecon report commissioned by the Housing Agency.
But it's unclear how exactly long-term unauthorised short-term lets are accounted for in those figures – as homes that can be brought back into use, or not.
Over the last five years, Dublin City Council's planning enforcement officers have come across just 79 unauthorised short-term lets that had been running for more than seven years, show council figures.
As such, they dropped enforcement proceedings against them. They were "statute barred", from taking the cases any further.
So those properties could tick along as holiday lets, rather than potentially housing long-term renters searching for somewhere to live in the city, or owner-occupiers. But in a grey zone, without planning permission.
But that's a small number.
What accounts for the gap between 17,000 and the band of the lower figures?
"The figures provided in the report are dependent on the nature of any regulations imposed and the extent of enforcement, based on comparative international models," said a spokesperson for the Department of Housing.
A spokesperson for the Housing Agency said they were looking into whether they could publish the full Indecon report.
Gaps in data available to government agencies and the public frequently came up as an issue during discussions at the Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, around the new Fáilte Ireland register.
Indeed, "data relating to the length of time a short-term let has been in operation is not currently held by this Department", said a spokesperson for the Department of Housing, and they said that the Department of Enterprise is leading on the regulation of short-term lets.
"The Department does not hold information on the number of properties that have been operating continuously over the past seven years," said a spokesperson for the Department of Enterprise.
The short-term letting sector is changeable and a difficult picture to capture, they said, "with properties frequently entering and exiting the market in response to changes in owner circumstances, tourism demand, housing market conditions, and broader economic factors".
Máire ní Mhurchú, chair of the Irish Self-Catering Federation, said that their tracking found that many properties in Dublin, which had been short-term lets before Covid-19 shut down the world, moved back into the medium-term and long-term rental sector during the pandemic.
So she doesn't think that many properties in the capital will have been running for more than seven years.
Data-scraping that agencies and researchers have relied on to date isn't exact as it might double-count and triple-count listings, she says.
Her body has been supportive of the idea of a register for years for this reason, she said. "We think it is essential. Because you can't plan, or understand what you've got, until you've got a register in place."
It's unclear exactly what evidence operators will have to provide to planners to prove that they have been operating for more than seven years, and so have access to that easier path to planning.
And, how any time out out of short-term letting during the Covid-19 pandemic may play into that calculation.
That'll be up to the council planners, said a spokesperson for the Department of Housing.
In its ruling that the short-term lets on South William Street are not exempted development, Dublin City Council pointed to the regulations brought in, in 2019.
"This has been established and set out by Planning and Development Act 2000 (Exempted Development) (No. 2) Regulations 2019," they said, "where exemptions were put forward but does not allow for the use of an entire property on a continuous bases within a rent pressure zone and as such permission is required for it’s use."
"While it is noted that the applicant states that the use of the units for short term lets is over the 7 years, and no enforcement action can be taken to stop this, the use is still unauthorised. To regularise the situation in planning terms, the applicant is entitled to seek planning permission for its retention," the council planner's report says.
Grattan Street Properties has appealed the council's decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
"It appears that it is the policy of Dublin City Council to refuse all applications without any investigation whatsoever, which seems unfair at the very least. Furthermore, there was absolutely no reason given for the refusal," said the appeal.
"Under the circumstances, we feel that we have not been afforded due process by Dublin Co Co Planning Department and therefore their refusal is not valid," it says.
If Grattan Street Properties does apply with a fresh planning retention application right away, they may get permission, but the chances are low.
In recent years, Dublin City Council planners have rarely granted new planning permissions for short-term lets. City policy is that Dublin desperately needs these apartments, and houses, as long-term housing.
Granting permission would go against policies that "seek to reverse the loss of residential use on the upper floors of commercial premises in order to revitalise the social and physical fabric of the city", ruled council planners, on 6 October, in relation to an application to use six apartments used as medium-term lets on Abbey Street Lower above Tang cafe as short-term lets.
"There is a general presumption against the provision of dedicated short term tourist rental accommodation in the city due to the impact on the availability of housing stock," said council planners, in response to another application for a ground-floor flat on Winetavern Street, in June. That's been appealed.
Ní Mhurchú, of the Irish Self-Catering Federation, said that one of the arguments for an easier planning permission for those that have been operating unauthorised short-term lets for more than seven years is about fairness.
When some operators started many years back, it wasn't clear whether they needed planning permission or not, she said.
One of their members in Dublin has been operating a property as short-term rentals for 30 years since they were built, she said. "There was no planning for short-term rentals when they were built. It's a planning issue, they're playing catch-up."
Gareth Redmond, the policy and advocacy officer at Threshold, is less convinced. Then-Housing Minister Fine Gael Eoghan Murphy's announced his round of regulation of short-term lets in October 2018, and they came in in 2019.
"That was legislated for seven years ago," he said. Even if enforcement of it was under-resourced and local authorities struggled to do it, he said.
That also followed the Crown Alley case, ruled on by An Bord Pleanála, in October 2016. Using a whole apartment in the Temple Bar development as a short-term let was not exempted development – it needed planning permission, it said.
So, whether it's 30 long-term unauthorised short-term lets in Dublin city, or 300 is just one of the questions in play. There's also the principle that if a development needs to be assessed by planners, everybody should have to apply for permission and go through that, says Redmond.
Some hoteliers are annoyed as they need to get planning permission for just about everything really as do homeowners, says Redmond. "An extension to your house, seating in your cafe. So I don't understand why there needs to be a special little carve-out for those who run a short-term letting operation."
In the Oireachtas in November, Senator Aubrey McCarthy said that he had gotten rid of the short-term lets that he operated in Dublin City just shy of a decade ago, because he could see legislation coming that would ban in.
"I made sure that I was not anywhere near this because I thought this was going to blow up and people would be going to jail," McCarthy said.
Ní Mhurchú says that everybody in the tourism short-term letting sector needs to see the final planning guidance, urgently though, given the register is to be in place on 1 December. "We need clarity in the whole sector."
A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said that "it should be noted that all hosts will be required to apply for planning permission regardless of the amount of time they have been in operation in order to gain access to the register".
They pointed to the draft national planning statement.
But planning applications are to be judged differently, depending on how long an operator has been running an unauthorised set-up.
When short-term lets that have been operating, and unauthorised, for less than seven years apply for planning in areas with more than 20,000 people, planners are expected to consider housing need.
But where a property built as a dwelling has been continuously used for short-term letting for at least seven years, and where no planning enforcement has taken place, there shall be a presumption in favour of granting planning permission, it says.
The planning application does still has to meet a few other criteria, too.
Council planners have to be satisfied that the proposal would not lead to "a serious traffic hazard, or flooding or pollution risk", or any provision which restricts occupancy of a dwelling to Irish-language speakers, the draft planning statement says.
But that consideration of housing need is gone, says Redmond of Threshold.
"If I'm being as fair as possible, some of these units aren't fit to be rental properties," he said. "But then there are others that clearly could be rental properties, or even once were rental properties."
There's also a question about how any planning permission granted in such cases would interact with covenants for apartment blocks which restrict short-term lets in the complexes.
"It is not the case that an Owner in a Multi-Unit Development can continue to do short term lets after the seven year rule simply because they got planning permission," said Aisling Keenan, an owners' management company (OMC) consultant and author of Owners Management Company – Law and Best Practice.
"Getting planning permission to do lettings will not override the lease covenants," she said.
Even when it comes to short-term lets operating for more than seven years, "there should be a provision whereby planning permission should not be granted in cases where there are such restrictive covenants in lease agreements", she said.
As Keenan sees it, the lack of discussion around this point is part of a wider trend of overlooking considerations of apartment living and management in public debate. "I am not aware of any areas where OMCs or the public have the opportunity to be consulted on this."
It's unclear at what point neighbours, or members of OMCs, will be able to weigh in on the planning routes for long-term unauthorised short-term lets.
Ní Mhurchú says the Self-Catering Federation's members provide short-term lets, and many of the properties aren't suitable for long-term rental.
Redmond says he was struck recently when he heard Taoiseach Micheál Martin, of Fianna Fáil, talk about "sweating the existing housing stock" in relation to rent-a-room schemes.
"First thing I thought when I heard that was, apply that to short-term lettings as well," Redmond said.
The tender document for the design says the framework has a maximum estimated value of €7.5 million. It also gives a tentative construction estimate of €25 million.
Social tenants, including children, are often locked out of communal areas in their complexes. Would it help if they were represented at the OMCs' meetings?
The current owner recently got planning permission to knock the old pub, and build 10 homes on the site.
At least 46 people died last year while homeless in Dublin
