The majority of Dublin's Airbnb lettings have returned to the long-term rental market according to Dublin City Council.
They claim almost 70 percent of properties suspected of operating illegally in the city have provided them with new tenancy agreements since the pandemic began.
As reported in the Irish Times, the Council is continuing to investigate potentially illegal short-term lets.
Owners in rent pressure zones are now required to get planning permission if they plan to use their home as a short-term rental for more than three months of the year, but the Council's policy is to deny the permission to prevent the loss of permanent rental accommodation options.
Lecturer at the School of Architecture at University College Dublin, Orla Hegarty says these rules need to be enforced to get as many houses back on the long-term market as possible.
"In Dublin it was thought that up to 5,000 permanent homes or apartments were in uses for tourists, which is a huge amount of the stock in Dublin.
"Dublin City Council were looking for people to get planning permission to use houses as tourist accommodation, but that wasn't being well enforced.
"A lot of people felt if there was a crackdown then we would have seen a lot of that stock coming back when we really needed hosing in the last few years."
The drop in tourists coming to Ireland due to the pandemic has caused the number of complaints regarding illegal short-term rentals to dwindle, says Dublin City Council planner Jonathan Fallon, allowing them to properly pursue the 900 properties identified to be in breach of the legislation.
Mr Fallon says the Council wrote to all of the property owners, after which between 60 and 70 per cent said they had reverted to long-term use, supplying tenancy agreement to confirm this.
Mr Fallon added that the Council continues to search websites for potentially illegal short-term rentals.
