Statement of Marketing Agent
Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Short Term Letting and Tourism Bill
Introduction
We are Dream Ireland Holiday Homes – a sales, marketing and reservations agency dedicated solely to holiday home rentals. Established in 1992 and based in Kenmare, Co Kerry, we now employ 32 people all year round from our office. We are currently listing more than 400 holiday homes on our website www.dreamireland.com in locations all over Ireland.
Holiday Homes marketing agencies such as ours were born from the introduction of Tax schemes such as Section 23 and 48 whereby owners had to have a representative management and marketing company
What is the role of a Holiday Homes Marketing Agent?
It is our role as a sales, marketing and reservations agency to maximise the number of bookings and revenues for all the homeowners who feature their properties with us. We don’t charge to be featured with us, rather we get a fixed commission per booking.
We source business for these holiday homes through a number of channels including:
- Our own website
- Repeat guests who have stayed with us over the years
- Traditional Tour Operators and Travel Agents from all over the world with who we have worked for many years
- Word of mouth through previous guests, local referrals
- Online and offline advertising
- Listings on global OTA’s such as Airbnb, booking.com, VRBO, Homes & Villas by Marriott and many more
Where are our properties located?
We feature holiday homes all over Ireland including:
Wild Atlantic Way area:- Kerry, Cork, Clare, Galway, Donegal
Ancient East Area:- Waterford, Wexford, Cavan
And the remainder are scattered around the remaining counties.
The only properties we feature in the cities of Cork, Dublin, Limerick and Dublin are Student Accommodation for summer lets, a couple of apartments associated with Hotels and two locations in Dublin that have been renting for more than 20 years. As you can clearly see, our business is very much rural based.
Guest Profiles
Our guests are mainly families, many from within Ireland and the rest from overseas. They stay for an average of 5 nights over the course of the year. Holiday homes offer good value for money, a full kitchen, laundry facilities and space – the perfect home away from home for these families.
What type of properties do we represen
- Holiday homes built as part of Tax schemes
- Principal Primary Residences
- Holiday Homes that have been in the family for generations
- Holiday Homes built for retirement
- Second homes for mainly Irish families used by family and friends for a few weeks a year
The Grandfather Rule
To the best of my knowledge, of all the holiday homes listed on our website, approximately 40% of them have been renting their property as a holiday home for 7 years or more.
Properties with existing planning for Short Term Rentals
From what I can gather, approximately 26% of those listed on our website have planning permission to rent on a short-term basis. Many of these are holiday homes that were part of larger schemes or groups of holiday homes built under Tax schemes. The remainder would be holiday homes that were built on the grounds of hotels which are Registered as Holiday Homes or Cottages with Failte Ireland.
Corporations and Vulture Funds
We have listened to the talk of Corporations and Vulture Funds snapping up groups of homes and apartments and converting them from long term rental homes into properties for short term rentals with lock boxes lining the walls. These are not the properties that we represent. We are a holiday homes rentals agency.
Every property we feature within our portfolio has an owner or a caretaker who meets and greets all arriving guests, ensuring that they receive a warm céad míle fáilte that they expect. These are not faceless corporate short term lets. They are owned by individuals and for many of these owners, their homes are their pride and joy.
If planning is required, how many will apply?
Next to none. The majority of our owners will just keep their holiday homes for personal use for friends and extended family and for the remainder of the year, the property will remain idle resulting in significant loss of tourism spend in the local rural economy.
Uncertainty
We are facing huge uncertainly right now.
- Uncertainty from homeowners who don’t know if they will be able to continue renting their property
- Uncertainty from potential guests who are receiving confusing messaging which is dissuading them from committing to booking their holidays this year
- Uncertainty for the future of our business and the employment we give locally
Requirements on us as a “Platform”
Failte Ireland have not engaged with us in the relation to the introduction of the Short Term Letting Register yet we understand that they have been in talks with the OTA’s.
We are led to believe that we will have reporting obligations but these have not been outlined to us. We do not have the resources available to us that these global OTA’s have in relation to developing new systems.
We understand that all holiday homes owners will have to provide us with their Registration Number in order for us to be allowed to advsertise them on our website however, we have not been given any guidelines how to prepare for this.
- How are we to verify these registration numbers?
- Where do we have to display them on our website?
- What are the reporting requirements?
- Will we receive training?
- Will we be given specifications as to the requirements so we can start developing our website and reservations system to cope with them?
- What support and resources will be given prior to the introduction of the register?
- Will their be a lead in time between the opening of the Register and the requirement for us to display these Registration Numbers?
We are simply running out of time to get all this in place.
Occupancy Levels
There was much talk recently in the media about the low occupancy rates for short term rentals in the Irish market. This information was based solely on information given to the Government by the large OTA’s and is very misleading and does not paint an accurate picture at all. For instance:
Many of our homeowners only wish to rent their holiday homes for certain weeks or months of the year and for the remainder, they keep the property for their personal use. Therefore, their home is “unavailable for rentals” rather than “unoccupied”.
Similarly, many of the bookings we receive for the holiday homes we feature come directly though our website or our call centre, so again, for the duration of those bookings, those holiday homes would show as “unavailable” on these OTA websites rather than “unoccupied”.
What is our ask?
We were asked for a solution and we gave you one – NQAF. 94% of all the properties we feature on our website either have Quality Assurance through the ISCF or Failte Ireland or are Registered holiday homes or cottages with Failte Ireland. We ask that these properties be exempt from having to apply for planning.
Similarly, with 40% of our holiday homes having been rented out for tourism for 7 years or more, we would ask that these homeowners be allowed avail of the “Grandfather Rule” and be allowed continue renting their out their homes.
In Conclusion
In the words of Simon Harris when recently discussing this new legislation, “Let’s be sure that the juice is worth the squeeze”…
Link to CEO Máire Ní Mhurchú Opening Statement
Link to Chairperson Derek Keogh Statement
Link to Statment of Tomás o Keeffe, Dairy Farmer and Thatch Cottage owner Ireland.
Link to Joc Enterprise Tourism and Employment Committee 18/2/2026
Link to Future of Tourism Enterprise Tourism and Employment Committee 28/1/2026
Link to ISCF Press Release 20/2/2026
Need More Information?
Contact us: Send an email to info@iscf.ie, and we’ll be happy to assist you.