A DUBLIN CITY Councillor has said the “unsightly” key lock boxes that are increasingly being seen in public spaces around Dublin is “assisting in the proliferation of Airbnb”.

“If you go to places like Pearse Street or Temple Bar you see them,” said Labour councillor Dermot Lacey of the key lock boxes, often used by people renting out short-term accommodation.

“I’ve been told that Essex Street is littered with them and I notice them particularly around the Gaiety School of Acting, a whole load of key lock boxes chained to poles, or bicycle stands, or traffic signs.

“It seems to be that the owners of the Airbnb are quite prepared to keep on buying new lock boxes, because they’re quite cheap, and they never remove them.”

Rather than having to meet the renter, or install some type of electronic lock or key box on the property, some Airbnb owners are storing keys in lock boxes that they then attach to public infrastructure.

The renters are given a code which allows them to open the lock box and retrieve the key for the accommodation.

At the beginning of this year, Paris followed several other French cities in seeking to ban the use of key lock boxes in public spaces.

Lacey raised the issue at a Dublin City Council meeting in May, and asked the Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare if he would “arrange for the unauthorised Airbnb key containers locked to various DCC structures to be removed across the City”.

The Chief Executive’s reply remarked that “landlords of holiday-lets are treated the same as landlords of standard-lets regarding their responsibilities under the Litter Bye-Laws”.

“More regulation by the government of the holiday-lets would undoubtedly reduce these incidences,” said the Chief Executive.

“On all of these public spaces, you have dozens of locks chained to them,” Lacey told The Journal.  

“This is not a major crisis in the world and I’m not trying to claim it is, but they are unsightly, they gather dirt, they also assist in the proliferation of Airbnb.

“While I’ve no objection to a reasonable proportion of Airbnbs, it is a contributory factor to our housing problem.”

The Government is planning on cracking down on short-term lets, such as Airbnb, with its Short-Term Tourist Letting Bill.

Government announced the plan in 2022 for a new short-term let register, with expectations it could bring thousands of properties back into the market.

Under the current draft of the bill, properties advertised for short-term letting via online platforms would be obliged to have a valid registration number with Fáilte Ireland.

Any host offering accommodation for periods of up to and including 21 nights will need to be registered.

Meanwhile, Lacey said the lock boxes in public spaces results in “the owner of the property never having to meet the renter, while the renter doesn’t know who the owner of the property is”.

“It’s a very impersonal way of letting out properties, and I don’t think that’s a particularly good thing.”

When asked if attaching lock boxes to such public infrastructure could also be a safety issue, Lacey said he didn’t want to “label places as being dangerous”.

However, he added: “Having lock boxes deep in the heart of the inner city on streets that aren’t used a lot, it could be dangerous.

“While there is too much fear-mongering at the moment – by and large Dublin is a safe city – I think people have to be careful and you don’t encourage people to go down dark lanes, or even bright lanes, that aren’t very well populated late at night.”

Lacey said it “all adds up to a questionable use of property in Dublin”.

“We need to use property better, we need to treat people safely,” said Lacey. “However, the issue that I am really highlighting is the unsightliness and the dirt of it.”

When asked about potential measures to tackle the “unsightliness” of the lock boxes, Lacey said he doesn’t think a new by-law would be needed.

“These are items chained to Dublin City Council property.

“I am making a presumption that Dublin City Council can remove items attached to their property that have no purpose,” said Lacey.

“We remove bicycle locks that are left on cycle stands for example, and I see no reason why we can’t remove these lock boxes as well.”

In response to The Journal, Airbnb noted that it is not the only short-term rental platform in Dublin and remarked that it is not clear that it is Airbnb hosts who are solely responsible for the key lock boxes in Dublin city. 

Airbnb said it requires all hosts to exchange keys in a safe and secure manner and while this can include in-person exchanges, it can also include the use of lock boxes.