Plenty of beds for tourists, but not for workers in Dingle

DINGLE has plenty of beds for tourists but not enough beds for tourism industry workers, some of whom are turning down jobs because they can’t get a place to stay for the summer.

The annual worker accommodation problem has become increasingly severe over recent years and worsened significantly after the housing estate on Greenmount became unavailable for summer rentals. The issue is now a serious concern for tourism businesses in Dingle who are having problems hiring seasonal staff because workers can’t find a place to rent for the summer.

The shortage of long term rental accommodation also affects local families and young people who want to move out of their parents’ home, despite the fact that a huge number of apartments and holiday homes have been built in Dingle and throughout West Kerry in the past 20 years.

The rise of the AirBnB online site, where property owners advertise short term holiday lettings, has been blamed for soaking up much of the available accommodation in West Kerry but it is also pointed out that the lack of council houses and ‘staff houses’ for tourism workers is contributing to the problem.

The role of AirBnB does appear to be significant. This week the site listed over 300 rental properties in West Kerry and over 200 in and around Dingle town. Meanwhile, MyHome.ie had only five homes available for long term rental in Dingle – ranging in price from €395 per week for a three-bedroom house in the Marina Cottages to €1,600 per week for a four-bedroom house in Ard na Mara. Daft.ie, which has listings for over 194,000 rental properties nationwide, didn’t appear to include Dingle in its search options at all; and Property.ie also seemed to draw a blank on Dingle.

“Dingle is becoming a place where you work – not where you live,” said Laurence Wetterwald of Grey’s Lane Bistro who is desperately trying to find accommodation for staff who will be arriving from France and Hungary in June. Another staff member, who was away for the winter, is now back in Dingle and, even this early in the year, can’t find a place to rent.

“The situation is getting worse every year… and what started it was the sale of Greenmount [housing estate] which had affordable rents and provided accommodation for lots of staff,” she said.

Adding that AirBnB is contributing greatly to the problem, Laurence said: “The accommodation crisis makes it difficult for restaurants to get staff and this then makes it difficult to maintain high standards… in the end everybody will lose out if the problem isn’t solved.”

“Everybody knows there’s a problem and people need to work together to solve it; to come up with a solution for the town, not just for individual businesses,” she added. “We’re so blessed in the peninsula with scenery, culture, everything – it’d be nice to give back a little in the way we organise ourselves in order to benefit everybody.”

Martin Bealin of the Global Village restaurant said he too is finding it difficult to get staff because they have nowhere to live. “This is a massive problem. There’s no point in continually attracting tourists to town if we don’t have places for workers to live,” he said.

“We’re very lucky here. We have great scenery, culture, food, music, the general atmosphere of the place… There are many positives. But we need to sit down and think about our infrastructure. We don’t have enough accommodation for staff; we don’t have enough parking for tourists, we don’t have a plan... We need to address these issues or we’re going nowhere,” he said.

Dingle Business Chamber Co-chairperson Gary Curran said he would see the accommodation situation as a challenge rather than a problem. “It comes up as an issue in the peak season, but not really at other times of the year,” he said.

Gary said staff accommodation was discussed at the last meeting of Dingle Business Chamber where there was a “very good, open discussion” and three issues were identified: No social housing built in Dingle since 2009; tourism businesses no longer providing ‘staff houses’; and to a lesser extent the loss of available accommodation to AirBnB.

He said many people who opt to rent properties short term on AirBnB don’t realise that they could earn about €13,000 tax free from long term rentals and the Business Chamber is seeking to make people more aware of this. He added that there is also “a pile of property in Dingle that isn’t being used at all” and the Business Chamber hopes to encourage the owners to make some of these available for long term rent.