FEARS that tourism on West Cork’s three peninsulas will be wiped out unless new rules governing the registration of self-catering accommodation are modified were expressed at a meeting of the West Cork Municipal District.

‘Hotel capacity is extremely limited in West Cork,’ Cllr Caroline Cronin (FG) stated after tabling a motion calling on the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to give short-term holiday rentals an exemption while a new EU policy is being reviewed.

She said many of the properties are second homes, used for personal holidays, and then rented out when not in use by the owners.

The Fine Gael councillor said a blanket rule, requiring registration and planning permission, could prove expensive. And she claimed their removal from the short-term rental market would ‘hurt rural communities, the local economy, and put jobs in jeopardy’.

Executive officer Noreen O’Mahony told members that the council’s position on this issue has yet to be decided because it is awaiting the finalisation of the legislation.

If the policy becomes law, holiday rentals, such as AirBnBs, will have to be registered, a move that will necessitate applying to the local authority for planning permission.

Cllr Joe Carroll (FF) warned the new regulations will be ‘unworkable’ because thousands would have to be registered by mid-May. He maintained: ‘That can’t happen because the council doesn’t have the staff to do that.’

The CEO of the Irish Self-Catering Federation, Máire Ní Mhurchú, said it is hard to quantify how many rentals have been taken up long-term since 2022 because there is insufficient data.

‘Until we have a register we will not have clear data so the ISCF supports the creation of a national short-term rental register. Many of these were never in the long-term rental market and are not suitable for long-term rental,’ she said.

‘Yet they are being painted as part of the problem, while developers and institutional landlords remain untouched.’

Ms Ní Mhurchú warned that proposed legislation would ‘devastate rural tourism, force thousands of legitimate family-run businesses to shut down, and risk up to €3.5 billion in lost revenue along the Wild Atlantic Way alone’.

Meanwhile, Peter Warburton of Cottages for Couples warned that ‘local authorities will get the blame when huge numbers of small and medium enterprises close down’.

He estimated that the tourism industry could lose 40% of its accommodation despite the government’s new tourism policy.

He said an analysis of the self-catering sector in September 2024 showed that if 1,313 self-catering businesses were closed in Cork there would be a €51.2 million annual loss to the economy.

But Mr Warburton believes the figure is likely to be much higher with over 3,500 self-catering properties at risk of closure which could push that figure to more than €100 million.