There has been a massive 88% increase in the number of entire homes on Airbnb in the Gaeltacht since 2019.

That’s according to data provided by Inside Airbnb to Conradh na Gaeilge and CATU – underlining the fact that the Gaeltacht is worse hit by the expansion of Airbnb than the rest of the country, with a 40.2% higher increase in the Gaeltacht than seen nationally.

The data, broken down by Gaeltacht Language Planning Area, shows an 88.1% jump in the number of entire homes in the Gaeltacht between May 2019, when the data was first scraped, and the end of September.

Galway’s Gaeltacht planning areas all showed substantial increases – An Cheathrú Rua up from 21 in 2019 to 31 in September; Barna and Knocknacarra up from 29 to 56; and Ceantar na nOileán from nine to 27 – a 200 per cent increase.

Cois Fharraige is up from 50 to 103, which is a jump of 106 per cent; Conamara Láir from 46 to 82; Maigh Cuilinn from five to 20 (or 300 per cent); Oileáin Árann from 19 to 29, and the Gaeltacht area to the east of Galway city from 28 to 79 – an increase of 182 per cent.

Overall, the number of entire homes on Airbnb increased in 25 out of 26 Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas – and the five largest Airbnb hosts in the Gaeltacht own 217 entire homes between them in the Gaeltacht.

“This data puts what we’ve been seeing on the ground on a statistical basis; that the Gaeltacht is being choked by the influence of Airbnb,” said Róisín Ní Chinnéide, Advocacy Manager with Conradh na Gaeilge.

Airbnb responded to the figures, claiming that their own internal data shows that a typical host in Ireland ‘shares one home for fewer than four nights a month’ and that its own survey feedback from over 1,200 Airbnb Ireland hosts says that ‘almost half say the extra income helps them to stay in their home’.

“While Airbnb is not the cause of long-standing housing challenges in the Gaeltacht, we’ve long called for Ireland to introduce proportional short-term letting rules including a host register, that protect the families, communities, and businesses that depend on tourism,” said a spokesperson for Airbnb.

“We’ll continue to work with the Government as it considers new regulation,” they added.

All of this comes in a week when the Gaeltacht pressure-group BÁNÚ has sent a detailed submission to the Minister for Housing, James Browne, asking that provision be made in the new National Housing Plan for the housing needs of Irish-speaking Gaeltacht communities.

The submission warns that the current housing crisis in Irish-speaking areas could have a detrimental effect on the position of Irish as the organic language of few existing Gaeltacht communities – as many of the next generation of Irish speaking parents have to leave their communities in order to find a suitable place to live and set up a family.

BÁNÚ is proposing that Údarás na Gaeltachta be given the necessary direction under Section 17 of Acht na Gaeltachta 2012 to supply services, such as waste water treatment in Gaeltacht areas, to facilitate the supply of housing for Irish speakers in Gaeltacht areas.

At the moment, BÁNÚ maintains, that it is not possible to provide housing in many Irish speaking areas due to the lack of public wastewater treatment schemes.

“The South Conamara Gaeltacht area has been badly served over the years by the particular failure of Galway County Council to provide wastewater treatment schemes in its rural areas,” said a BÁNÚ spokesperson.

“Galway County has 35 public sewerage schemes compared to 92 in County Tipperary, a county with a lower population than Galway.”

It believes that this infrastructure deficit could be rectified if the Government allowed Údarás na Gaeltachta to provide modular wastewater treatment services in rural Gaeltacht communities to facilitate the development of small schemes of affordable housing.

BÁNÚ also maintains that the ‘Ready to Build’ scheme, could help alleviate the problems faced by people from the area in getting planning permission for one-off housing.

Under the scheme serviced sites can be sold to qualifying applicants at up to €30,000 below the cost of their development, who would then be obliged to build their own homes on the sites.

BÁNÚ wants the Housing Department to recognise Údarás na Gaeltachta as a body which could provide serviced sites for Irish speakers in Irish-speaking parts of the Gaeltacht, in conjuction with the local authorities.

“People in the Conamara /Aran Gaeltacht have traditionally preferred to build their own house, rather than depend on social housing,” explained the spokesperson.

“However getting planning permission for a one-off house on unserviced land is problematic. Providing serviced sites for people in clusters, with services under the ‘Ready to Build’ scheme could go a long way to solving the housing crisis in the Gaeltacht.”

Pictured: Róisín Ní Chinnéide, Advocacy Manager with Conradh na Gaeilge.