Eoghan O'Brien

First of all, David, this is incredibly frustrating.

Governments have been talking about regulating the short-term letting sector for a decade.

And the current iteration of the Board Vulture Register and new planning regulations have been in the process for four years.

And we didn't get the publication of any legislation yesterday.

We didn't get the new planning regulations.

All we got is a re-announcement of something that was announced last year, the year before that.

But there are two significant changes.

The first day is in those urban areas where government is saying it wants to bring long-term residential properties back into long-term residential use.

They're actually now going to have a get-out-of-jail-free card for people who've been breaking planning law for seven years where they'd be able to apply for planning permission that wasn't currently on the table.

And the second thing then in those rural and countryside areas where all of us want a more flexible regime, there's going to be a two-year lead-in period.

So that means, first of all, there's going to be far fewer properties in urban areas where we have a homelessness crisis and a private rental sector crisis brought back into use.

But also the regulations are going to take at least two years to introduce.

And that's before we've even got sight of them.

Nothing has been published, despite the fact that ministers have been talking about this for two years.

And then finally, the short-term letting platforms are getting off the hook

again, Airbnb and others, are knowingly and willingly facilitating and profiting from large-scale breaches of planning law.

And the government has no proposals to enforce the rules there, despite the fact that we tabled legislation that was supported by government.

That is a statement of fact.

They are advertising today properties that are in breach of planning law and they're profiting from that.

It's a statement of fact and government has no plans to hold them to account for the facilitation and profiting of breaches of planning legislation.