Labour’s Moriarty calls for 1% tax on tourists

Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty has called for the introduction of a hotel bedroom tax in Dublin.

The South-West Inner City Councillor has called on on Government, namely, Tourism Minister Catherine Martin, and Business Minister Simon Coveney, to advance the measure and devolve this power to local authority level.

He said that charging tourists at even a rate of just 1% could generate around €12 million in revenue each year for Dublin City Council.

He noted that the introduction of this tax has the full support of Dublin City Council members, and was also recommended by the Government’s own Commission on Welfare and Taxation.

Moriarty said that Government is “standing in the way and preventing local authorities from raising this potentially vital revenue.”

A report was published by Dublin City Council’s Finance Committee in January 2023, with both Martin and Coveney saying at the time it would “need to be looked at” and given a ‘thorough examination’ by Government.”

“15 months later and we have heard nothing. There has been no update on their supposed thorough examination,” he said.

Statistics showed that over 7 million overseas tourists visited Ireland in 2022, and about 2 in 3 of overseas visitors spend all of, or part of their visit to Ireland in the Dublin City Council area.

“It is not a radical ask that we introduce a hotel bedroom tax. It’s commonplace across Europe in major cities with Amsterdam charging 7%, Berlin 5% and Vienna 3% to name a few examples. Further, in Paris, there are different taxes levied on visitors depending on whether they are staying in a 3-star, 4-star or 5-star hotel. and Croatia operates a different level of tariff depending on whether it is peak tourist season or off peak.”

He said that this is a prime example of an area local government should have control over as opposed to all of the power being centralised by the government.

“There are numerous ways this could be introduced if the Government decided to devolve this power and let local Government make important decisions and bring decision-making closer to local communities. The revenue raised by this tax could be put back into communities across our capital city making it a much cleaner, and nicer place to spend time.”

The motion was adapted at Labour’s recent party conference.