John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this debate. There are many aspects of the housing issue on which we could focus, but I would like to refer to the area of private rented accommodation.

My area, the South Dublin County Council area, was one of the areas used to pilot the rental accommodation scheme, RAS, which has proven very successful. I meet constituents with housing requirements on a regular basis and the scheme is proving popular with them. When the scheme was launched initially, there was much scepticism as to how effective it would be. However, the beneficiaries of the scheme hold it in high regard and it has proved an effective means of providing residential accommodation.

One of the issues raised last night concerned the standard and inspections of rental accommodation. Last night many Deputies called on the Government to enforce and improve standards in the private rented sector, but many of the comments made were inaccurate. I would like to set the record straight on some of those issues.

In the partnership agreement, Towards 2016, the Government committed to updating and effectively enforcing minimum standards regulations for rented housing. Updating these standards is a core component of the housing policy statement, Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities, and the Government recently delivered on this commitment by approving a package of measures to update the standards regulations.

It is important that these regulations reflect the requirements of the modern rental sector and general quality-of-life improvements over the past number of years. With this in mind, and as part of the overall package of measures approved by Government, new regulations entitled the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2008, under section 18 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1992 were made recently. These will come into effect on 1 February next year, with certain provisions not coming into effect until 2013.

All landlords have a legal obligation to ensure that their rented properties comply with the standards regulations. Responsibility for enforcing the regulations rests with the relevant local authority, supported by a dedicated stream of funding allocated by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The resources allocated by the Department to assist local authorities in their statutory functions in enforcing standards are significant. Over €9 million has been provided to local authorities for this purpose since 2004.

Funding for inspections, which is paid from the proceeds of tenancy registration fees, has more than doubled since 2005 when €1.5 million was disbursed. In the current year, 2008, some €4 million has been allocated for this purpose. Increasingly this funding is being related to inspection performance, effectively rewarding those authorities that are most vigorous in their approach to inspections, and the trend towards performance-related funding will continue.

However, it is not just a matter of increasing funding and hoping that, of itself, will solve the problem. The increased funding is having a significant impact on the number of inspections carried out by local authorities. For example, in 2005 local authorities carried out a total of 6,800 inspections. The following year, 2006, that figure rose to 9,800, an increase of 44%. In 2007, over 14,000 inspections of rental accommodation were carried out by local authorities, an increase of 42% on the figure for the previous year.

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