THIS WEEK, WE heard from our readers on short-term lets and the síneadh fada. Have something to say? See our letter guidelines here. 

Prison space

[Electronic tagging for some offenders will begin by end of the year]

Overcrowding in Irish prisons is both a human rights issue and a public health crisis. Individuals entering the prison system often have poorer health than the general population. This is compounded by overcrowding, which worsens mental health and accelerates the spread of infectious diseases.

However, introducing electronic tagging for pre-trial detention risks creating a parallel healthcare crisis under the guise of reform.

A study from the US showed that pre-trial surveillance acts as a structural determinant of ill health – generating stress, disrupting routine and preventative medical care, and increasing emergency room visits.

To relieve pressure on the prison system, we must stop viewing justice through a purely punitive lens.

Expanding the scope of incarceration through electronic monitoring will not improve public health. We need sustained investment in community-based support programmes, intervening before people ever reach the courtroom doors.

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An accent problem

Why is the ‘u fada’ causing so much trouble for presenters/announcers on Irish TV?

I have noticed a number of TV presenters/announcers reporting on Comisiúin na Meán and pronouncing ‘Commission na Maan’ which is not the English version of the authority’s name.

It is the Media Commission in English. Even non-gaelgeoirí should be able to manage that amount of Gaeilge.

Le meas,

John O’Brien,
Clare

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Short-term stays, long-term problems

Dublin needs to ban, or at minimum restrict short-term lets, the way several other European cities already have. 

We’ve heard all the objections by now, and none of them hold up. It won’t fix homelessness overnight. Neither does building housing, but nobody uses that as a reason to stop building houses.

Ireland reportedly has nine times more Airbnbs advertised than long-term rentals on any given day.

That’s not bad luck, that’s the market voting with its feet toward whichever option pays better.

Property rights in Ireland were never absolute anyway. Rent pressure zones exist. Planning permission exists. Fire regulations exist. A short-let licence is a privilege the state grants, not a right etched into the deed.

Budget 2026 committed over 11 billion to housing, and still 17,000 people sit in emergency accommodation. Against that backdrop, closing a licensing loophole costs the state nothing compared to another acquisition programme.

We have thousands of properties sitting on Airbnb in this city that should be homes. That’s not a housing shortage, it’s a monopoly. 

Regards tourism, the hospitality sector isn’t being propped up by short lets, it’s being strangled by the lack of hotel capacity, no small part of it down to IPAS contracts eating into hotel stock.

Eliminating Airbnb redirects visitors back to hotels, hostels and guesthouses, which means real jobs in hospitality rather than a landlord’s side income. 

Right now the opposite is happening, visitor beds are drying up, and restaurants, cafés and shops that depend on footfall are feeling it. That’s a domino effect where locals lose jobs and end up leaving their own towns to find work. And the argument that families travelling in groups needed Airbnb doesn’t require torching the whole sector either.

Barcelona, in its attempts to ban short-term lets, kept licensed aparthotels as their own category. Nobody’s proposing Ma and Da sleep in shifts, just regulation instead of a free-for-all. Every night an apartment sits on a booking platform is a night it isn’t sitting on daft.ie. Ending Airbnb in Dublin won’t solve everything in this country. But it’s a bloody good start.

Rob Buchanan, 
Dublin

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