Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Given the need for inspectors to enter tenants’ homes, pandemic restrictions have greatly impacted on rental inspection activity since March 2020. The County and City Management Association’s (CCMA) Local Authority Services Frameworks for Future Covid-19 Pandemic Response did not permit on-site rental inspections for long periods in 2020 and 2021. This was in order to protect tenants, landlords and inspectors. Even when restrictions were relaxed there was still a reluctance on the part of some tenants to allow authorised inspectors access their homes. Inspections have been and continue to be frustrated by some tenants needing to self-isolate due to having Covid-19 or being a close contact.

In response to the disruption caused by the pandemic some local authorities piloted virtual inspections which my Department supported with Exchequer funding. Dublin City Council led this initiative and commenced virtual inspections in May 2020. The Department incorporated and standardised the approach taken countrywide into a pilot programme, requesting business cases from participating local authorities to ensure that processes are suitably robust and comprehensive.

It is a key component of the virtual inspection model that local authorities reserve the right to conduct a physical on-site inspection when it is safe to do so and landlords were advised accordingly. Many rented dwellings have been subsequently re-inspected physically, since pandemic restrictions have eased.

Since the CCMA allowed the resumption of on-site inspections in July 2021 many councils participating in the pilot programmes ceased virtual inspections, but a number have continued to undertake some. Q4 2021 inspection data is currently being collated and verified but indications are that virtual inspections accounted for circa 5% of all inspections undertaken in that period.

As set down in Housing for AllI envisage virtual inspections playing an important supporting role to the traditional on-site inspection regime, with on-site inspections accounting for the majority of inspections undertaken. I believe that the potential offered by a virtual inspection approach needs to be fully explored. This is being progressed through an ongoing process of evaluation by my Department of the sector's experience with virtual inspections since 2020.