Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)
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698. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of rental inspections that have taken place each year from 2015 to 2020 and to date in 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40454/21]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019 specify requirements in relation to a range of matters, such as structural repair, sanitary facilities, heating, ventilation, natural light and safety of gas, oil and electrical supplies. With very limited exemptions, these apply to all private rented accommodation. All landlords have a legal obligation to ensure that their rented properties comply with these regulations. Responsibility for the enforcement of the Regulations rests with the relevant local authority.

The Strategy for the Rental Sector sets out a series of measures to be introduced to ensure the quality of private rental accommodation by strengthening the applicable standards and improving the inspection and enforcement systems. The Strategy recognises the need for additional resources to be provided to local authorities to aid increased inspections of properties and ensure greater compliance with the Regulations.

Increased funding has been made available to local authorities each year since 2018 to enable them to build inspection capacity incrementally, with payments based on the number of inspections undertaken. Significant progress was made across the sector. The number of inspections more than doubled from 19,645 in 2017 to 40,728 in 2019. A total of €6 million in Exchequer funding was made available to local authorities in 2020 and this was increased to €10 million this year. However, given the need for inspectors to enter tenants’ homes, pandemic restrictions have greatly impacted on inspection activity since March 2020.

In response some local authorities have been piloting virtual inspections. Dublin City Council have led this initiative which entails landlords receiving a checklist for self-assessment and being required to submit photographic/video evidence by email, tenants being invited to raise any non-compliance issues they are aware of and whether or not they can confirm if the landlord’s checklist answers are correct, and the Council reserving the right to conduct a physical on-site inspection when it is safe to do so.

While virtual inspection systems present certain challenges and limitations, they do offer a way of improving the standard of rental accommodation despite the pandemic. I support these initiatives and my Department has been providing Exchequer funding to local authorities participating in the pilot projects.

The number of private rental inspections undertaken by local authorities in each of the years from 2015 to 2020 and in Q1 2021 is set out in the following table. Inspection data in respect of Q2 2021 is being collated and is not yet available.

Annual data in respect of the level of inspections carried out by each local authority is available on my Department's website at:

www.gov.ie/en/publication/da3fe-private-housing-market-statistics/