Sorca Clarke (Longford-Westmeath, Sinn Fein)
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77. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number of inspections of rental accommodation by local authority that have taken place in 2021 and to date in 2022; and the number of inspectors allocated to carry out inspections of rental accommodation in each local authority in tabular form. [50695/22]

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, fire safety and the safety of gas, oil and electrical installations. 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.

To aid increased inspections of properties and ensure greater compliance with the Regulations, increased Exchequer funding has been made available to local authorities since 2018 to enable them to build inspection capacity, 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. However, given the need for inspectors to enter tenants’ homes, pandemic restrictions greatly impacted on inspection activity since March 2020. The number of inspections undertaken fell to 25,703 in 2020 and 20,240 in 2021. However, figures for the first half of 2022 show that more than 23,000 inspections have been carried out.

The following table includes the number of private rental accommodation inspections by each local authority for 2021 and to date in 2022.

My Department plays no operational role in the inspection of private rental accommodation under these regulations. Staffing of this function is a matter for each local authority, and my Department does not routinely collate or hold the information requested by the Deputy.