OPINION: Boycott call not the answer to housing crisis in Mayo

THE aborted plan, if it could be called such, to boycott the owners of holiday homes in Mayo was as reckless as it was socially divisive. And however well intentioned, the notion that a boycott would bring properties back into use for long term sustainable housing was simply a non starter.

Yes, the housing shortage is cutting deep into social solidarity, but fanning the flames of resentment is hardly a strategy of cohesive rationale.

It is easy to see how public officials, charged with the provision of housing, would grasp at any straw which might offer a relief of any sort from the pressure. And even a sticking plaster solution - such as berating holiday home owners or short term Airbnb letters - might seem better than nothing.

READ: Boycott talk about holiday home owners in Mayo brought 'county into disrepute'

But to do so is to ignore the elephant in the room- the fundamental problem is the lack of housing supply, and to place the blame elsewhere is to let off the hook the successive governments which have failed to articulate, much less implement, a realistic housing policy.

While it might be galling for the thousands of Mayo's homeless to realise that 6,000 of the county's housing units are used as holiday homes, shunning the owners was never going to achieve anything.

Apart from the fact that very many of the holiday home owners have deep roots in the locality (neighbours' children, as it were), it's worth remembering that such owners bought their properties fair and square, they pay their taxes, they support the local economy, and they have full legal right to use their homes as often, or as little, as they choose.

And if we are to move into the sphere of judging whether the community good trumps the individual's right to the enjoyment of lawfully owned property, then we are moving into very dangerous territory indeed.

It's a long jump from punishing a holiday home owner by ostracising him to forcing him to sell out, as the eponymous Captain of landlord infamy was forced to do, or to rent his property on a long term basis. Nor is there any guarantee - as current statistics bear out - that such a private property, in a remote but scenic location, would be in any way attractive to a homeless applicant seeking a home in an urban setting.

Should the authorities opt to go to battle with holiday home owners, there is an existing weapon in its armoury which, although unlikely to be effective, it could utilise.

The Vacant Homes Tax is a levy on unoccupied homes which is currently set at five times, soon to be increased to seven times, the Local Property Tax.

However, the levy only demands occupancy of the property for thirty days a year, meaning that the bar for liability is set so low that only the most absent of absentee owners are caught in the net.

If that threshold was to be increased threefold, for example, it would at least ensure that no home would remain idle and locked up for extended periods.

The other hot iron in the property fire is the alleged prevalence of short term, Airbnb, lettings in our more popular tourist towns. If the quoted statistics are to be believed, it is hard to square the actual evidence with the ERSI assertion that there is no correlation between the increase in Airbnbs and the dearth of available private long term rentals.

It is said that one in three lettings in Westport are Airbnb; that there is only one long term rental on offer in the town, while there are 300 rooms, apartments and houses available on Airbnb. And that the equivalent metric in Ballina shows over five hundred such properties on offer.

Nor is it hard to see why short term letting is a lucrative business. A property owner would only need to rent out his home on Airbnb for six days a month to obtain the same revenue as he would for the entire month in the private long term rental sector.

Holiday homes and short term letting may be convenient scapegoats for the housing dilemma. But interfering with either by way of heavy handed regulation or stirring up popular resentment is not the way to solve anything. The fundamental failure lies with government ineptitude and a total lack of a rational housing policy. And until that is recognised, all of the talk will remain mere waffle.

READ: ‘Boycott holiday homeowners in Mayo’ - proposal from Mayo County Council official