Michael Pidgeon

speaker

145 appearances 2 recordings 2 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 22 Jun

Michael Pidgeon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.

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The Claire Byrne Show · Irish cities may soon be able to introduce a tourism tax · 22 Jun 2026 podcast

They're doing their job.

Well, no, but in a sense, they might in terms of what visitors are paying.

Now, Paul used to be manager of Buswells, which is a great hotel.

I looked at the room rate for tonight, for example.

It would be a last minute booking, so it's higher than usual, be €302.

If we had a 1% charge, that bill would be €305.

I don't think there is anyone in the world who was thinking, ah, no, I'm not going to go to Dublin.

€302 is fine, €305, I'm out.

I don't think it makes that substantial of a difference.

And if you look at cities which have hotel taxes, which I think are too high, which I wouldn't apply here, like Amsterdam, that's a 12.5% rate.

And they've studied it there and they found it hasn't had a measurable impact on tourism.

So I think kind of a 1% or 2% charge is not going to move the dial in any substantial way.

But for the city, it could mean we have measurably cleaner core city centre.

It could mean we're investing or building a new park every single year.

There's lots we could do with that funds.

Yes, I think it should.

This depends entirely on how the government would structure it themselves, but I think it should.

But ultimately in Dublin, I'm seeing a lot of Airbnbs are in, this is a separate issue, but they're in full-time homes that I'd love to just see back as housing.

But for those Airbnbs or apart hotels or whatever are there, I think it's best to include all of those things in there because otherwise you end up kind of diverting people into different sectors.

No, I think that's essentially just not true.

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