Connacht Tribune
Homeless charity wants crackdown on Airbnb
A local homeless charity has called for a tightening of the regulations around Airbnb with over 2,000 Galway homes being let to visitors – half of them entire homes and over a third on a full-time basis according to an analysis of listings.
Cope Galway said it firmly believed that Airbnb – the giant online service allowing people to lease or rent short-term lodging – was contributing to the homelessness crisis.
In the same week that just 118 homes in all of Galway were advertised for rent on the website daft.ie, there were a total of 2,212 active Airbnb rentals across Galway City and County.
Of these, 52% were the full properties and 38% were being let full-time, according to data collated by AirDNA, which analyses public information about Airbnb’s listings.
Cope Galway’s assistant CEO, Martin O’Connor, said the data shows the heaviest concentration of properties was in the city and in tourist hotspots such as Connemara.
“In 2017 the number of hosts renting on Airbnb started to climb massively. Anecdotally we’re hearing of blocks of apartments in the city being rented on Airbnb and people setting up a business,” he remarked.
“These are properties that were given planning permission as residential not as accommodation providers such as hotels or B&Bs which must comply with fire regulations.
“You have the ironic situation of tourists living in homes while people without homes are having to live in B&Bs and hotels.
“The introduction of measures to disincentivise the full-time use of homes for Airbnb purposes and the enforcement of planning laws already on the statute books are measures the government can take now.
“While we understand that revenue from Airbnb is an important source of income for struggling homeowners, our concern is that accommodation which is available all year round and in the form of entire homes, is accommodation taken out of the rental market.”
There were 259 people classed as homeless in Galway on the fourth week of March according to the latest available figures from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government.
This does not include the numbers of rough sleepers who engage with Cope Galway – currently between ten and twelve a night – or the ‘hidden homeless’ who couch-surf with friends and family.
Airbnb disputes the accuracy of the data, claiming entire home listings in Galway last year represented just 0.7% of the available housing stock.
“This report uses inaccurate scraped data to make misleading assumptions about our community. The vast majority (70%) of hosts in Ireland share the home in which they live. The Airbnb model is unique and empowers regular people and boosts local communities, generating over €506 million in economic activity in Ireland last year,” said a spokesperson.
In Galway last year, the typical host on Airbnb earned €5,100 and hosted for less than 4 nights per month – showing that it is only occasional activity
“Many individual hosts are not able to manage their own listing, for example when they are away on holiday or at work, so they ask a management company to take care of bookings on their behalf. In data scrapes, these would show as one individual with multiple listings, when in reality these listings belong to many different hosts. Similarly, a host may manage both their own listing and the listing of a neighbour or friend.
“The platform also has some licensed boutique hotels and serviced apartments listing their spaces, as the platform offers them the opportunity to reach a wider and more diverse audience than traditional offline advertisements. Many of these are listed as entire homes.”
In London, hosts cannot rent out entire homes for more than 90 days per year without official consent from their council. In Paris, registration for short-term lettings is now mandatory and must be no longer than 120 days a year; Barcelona has suspended all new short-term rental permits; Amsterdam has cut its permitted short-term lettings limit from two months a year to one; and hosts in Berlin are only permitted to rent out their property for half of the year.
Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy is overdue in publishing a report by a departmental working group examining whether new regulations are needed for lettings websites.
An Bord Pleanála ruled in 2016 that using residential apartments for short-term lets was a “change of use” and required planning permission.
Following the ruling, the government issued guidelines to councils last year limiting apartment owners to letting their property in the short term for 60 nights in a year.
The guidelines said flat owners could not rent flats for more than five nights in a row and no more than two rooms in an apartment can be occupied each night, with a guest limit of four people a night.
Martin O’Connor said it was clear from the Galway data these guidelines were not being enforced.
“The number of properties continuously in Airbnb use shows they’re certainly not in compliance with department guidelines. For us, really, the issue is the acute shortage of accommodation here while there is an extraordinarily high number of Airbnbs.”
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
