Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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589. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his plans to introduce legislation to rescind the former Minister, John Gormley's legislation to ban bedsits, as this act has been a huge contributory factor to the current homeless crisis. [5022/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Regulations 6, 7 and 8 of the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2008 came into effect for all residential rented accommodation on 1 February 2013. The purpose of Regulation 6 is to ensure that each rental property has exclusive access to its own sanitary facilities and that those facilities are contained within the dwelling unit. Regulation 7 relates to effective heating which can be independently managed by the tenant, while Regulation 8 provides for sole access to adequate facilities for the hygienic storage, preparation and cooking of food. The 2008 Regulations came into effect generally on 1 February 2009 but allowed a four year phasing-in period to facilitate any improvement works that needed to be carried out in respect of Regulations 6, 7 and 8. Responsibility for their enforcement rests with the local authorities, funded from part of the proceeds of tenancy registration fees collected by the Private Residential Tenancies Board (PRTB). Since 2005, over 149,000 inspections have been carried out by local authorities on properties in the sector.

Census 2011 indicated that there were approximately 4,500 bed-sits across the country – the majority of which are found in Dublin – accounting for 1% of households in the private rented sector. A recent report from Dublin City Council found that the majority of dwellings selected for inspection (which were pre-1963 multi-unit buildings and more likely to be in this category of accommodation) were non-compliant with the regulations on initial inspection.

These inspections were part of an intensified inspection programme funded by my Department that commenced in 2012 and is due to run until March 2015. It specifically targeted concentrations of rented properties which were deemed to be at risk of non-compliance with the legislation. Up to October 2014, 66% of the non-compliant properties had been brought into compliance. Enforcement action continues against the remainder, including legal action in certain cases.

The purpose of the regulations is to provide a basic standard for decent, safe and secure accommodation and I have no plans to rescind the legislation.