A plan by self-catering accommodation providers to bombard public representatives with postcards as a protest over a proposed new register and regulations has been launched.
West Cork woman and CEO of the Irish Self-Catering Federation, Máire Ní Mhurchú, is a spokesperson for the Stop Scapegoating Self-Catering Campaign.
She is one of a large number of accommodation providers who will be handing out postcards of a rather irate looking goat to their guests and asking them to send them to local and national public representatives.
Máire said that, and a national media campaign, is the only way of letting the public know of the ‘impossible situation’ they have been placed in.
She explained that the EU has mandated that every self-catering accommodation provider be listed on a register before next May; and that every self-catering accommodation unit must have planning permission.
‘The department of housing is telling us we all have to have planning permission by next May despite the fact that they haven’t written the planning legislation yet for short-term rental because the whole country is now classed as a rent pressure zone,’ she said.
She acknowledged that the short-term rental sector has been in limbo for some years because the government couldn’t make up its mind what to do. Things changed in 2012 with the arrival of the online travel agents, such as booking.com.
Máire said she, and others in the federation, have no problem with the reintroduction of a register, and clear data about how many self-catering units there are in the country.
‘It’s the requirement that all units have planning that is causing the greatest concern,’ said Máire, citing her own situation as the owner of the award-winning self-catering property, Dunmanus Cottage, near Durrus as one example.
The property, which was originally owned by a grand aunt, was built in the 1960s and has planning, but it doesn’t have short-term rental planning, or STR for short.
Máire explained that the building had been left idle for almost a quarter of a century and had briars as tall as the roof before she restored it.
‘Like me,’ she added, ‘most small self-catering accommodation providers don’t have STR planning.’
She claims that they are being scapegoated by the government because they have a housing crisis that they have failed to deal with effectively.
