Short-term-rental regulations announced by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy TD in October 2018 are scheduled to take effect 1 June 2019, beginning in areas with high rents and low housing supply. The intent is to discourage "professional landlords" from buying up properties and converting them to short-term rentals for transients, and to put more rental units back into the supply of traditional long-term rentals for residents.

In simple terms, these new regs would:

• Permit homesharing of all or part of an owner's primary residence, once registered with local authority, for periods of 14 or fewer days at a time, up to a max of 90 days a year.
• Properties not the primary residence that have existing short-term-let permission can continue to be rented short-term.
• Owners will have to seek short-term-let planning permission for any other properties. (But "In areas of high housing demand and, taking into account other relevant factors such as cumulative impacts, it is unlikely that permission would be granted."

Airbnb has warned the Department of Tourism that these regulations would potentially put at risk 82,700 tourist bednights annually in Dublin alone, and 135,000 Ireland-wide.

1 June is coming up fast. How will this play out this summer? Stay tuned for updates.