Mr. Paul Dunne:

I thank Senator Boyhan for his comments. I think he is right. We recognise there is a difficulty in standards in private rental accommodation. The idea of an inspection regime is to have an impact on those standards and to improve them. Obviously, that is not working. The incremental strategy is designed to increase the impact and to improve the standards. We have revised the standards. The regulations came out in July 2017. We have issued guidelines to local authorities on how to implement the standards. We have set up our working groups. As Senator Boyhan said, a partnership approach is needed. We are committed to that. We are committed to increasing inspections, but there are also other areas on which we need to focus. Education and awareness are very important. We must make sure each landlord is aware of the standards and the legal obligation he or she has to enforce the standards, and the responsibilities and liabilities they put on them.

I will sit down with Threshold and go through the NCT approach with it. I do not make any commitment but I will consider it. There are options such as self certification as well as an NCT approach and there might be an option for outsourcing inspections with a certificate at the end of it. There are plenty of options but I think we can sit down and consider it. There is a commitment on behalf of the Department going forward to try to increase the inspections. Part of that approach is to ensure we follow up on enforcement where a property is in serious breach and in serious non-compliance. Enforcement for landlords who do not take their responsibility seriously will send out a quick message that it is the responsibility of landlords and they have to get in line. Many landlords do comply and if minor non-compliance is brought to their attention they remedy it very quickly. I am not attacking all landlords, it is just a cohort that does not seem to accept its responsibility.