TWO DUBLIN LOCAL authorities have come together to push for national legislation to enable councils to levy taxes on overnight stays by tourists.

Fingal County Council has written to all councils nationwide calling for the introduction of enabling legislation for locally collected “transient visitor tax” on overnights in hotels, short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, and other accommodation.

Opponents of such a measure have argued it would hamper Dublin’s competitiveness by increasing the cost of visiting what is already an expensive city.

However, Dublin City Council is on board with the idea of tourism tax, and has requested cooperation on the matter from Dublin’s other two councils, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown.

It’s understood Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is set to formally indicate soon that it will co-operate on the initiative, following a discussion by its finance committee.

James Humphreys, a Labour Party councillor for Swords in Fingal, said many visitors to hotels in his area – in the hinterland of Dublin airport – were transient commuters. He hopes a tourism levy could be ringfenced for initiatives to encourage tourists to venture further in Fingal and stay for longer.

However, councils cannot implement such a tax without enabling legislation from national government. Fingal wrote to the Minister for Finance late last year to request this.

Séamas McGrattan, a Sinn Féin councillor and chair of Dublin City Council’s finance committee, said Dublin-wide cooperation would ensure there was no distortion of the tourism market, and increase political pressure on national government to take action.

Dublin City Council’s finance committee proposed a 1% hotel tax in 2023. The council’s current ruling coalition of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party is in favour of such a measure. It says a tourist tax will help fund city services and enable the council to ease pressure on small businesses commercial rates.

Tourist taxes are levied in many popular destinations worldwide. Visitors to Venice pay €1-5 per night, depending on the time of year, with the funds used to finance maintenance of the city’s heritage sites, as well as public services and events.

In Vienna, visitors must pay 3.2% tourist tax on their accommodation bill, while Lisbon doubled its tourist tax from €2 to €4 per guest per night last September.

The Irish Hotels Federation has criticised the proposal for Dublin, arguing that its members in the capital already contribute to the city’s budget through commercial rates and levies to fund local authority services. Hotels argue a tourist tax will hamper Ireland’s competitiveness in the international tourism market.