South Dublin County Council launched no enforcement actions for poor standards in rentals last year

Last year across Dublin, environmental health inspectors for the councils checked more than 16,600 privately rented homes to see if they met the minimum standards in law, show recently published Department of Housing statistics.

About 60 percent of those inspected didn’t, and together the councils wrote 11,000 letters to landlords to tell them what they needed to fix.

Each of the four councils carried out a hefty number of inspections and banged out loads of improvement letters but when it came to the next stage of the process, of issuing improvement notices – the first step towards real enforcement action –  the pictures diverge.

Dublin City Council started enforcement proceedings in almost 950 cases, about 30 percent of the cases where the property failed to meet the standards at first inspection.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council started enforcement proceedings on around 0.87 per cent of those which failed the first inspection.

Fingal County Council did for five properties, around 0.13 percent of the cases that had failed at first check – an increase from 2022, when it did none.

South Dublin County Council didn’t bring enforcement proceedings against any landlord in 2023.

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Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan, says that the low levels of enforcement action are unlikely to indicate that all of the thousands of homes were brought into compliance.

More likely, some councils are weak on enforcement of standards, he said.

“It’s simply not credible that everything was fixed perfectly and they know that and they can stand over that,” he says.

Dublin City Council has the resources and the culture of taking enforcement of rental standards seriously, he says. All other councils should have a similar proportion of enforcement action, says O’Callaghan.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said the government is committed to ensuring that rented accommodation is of a high-quality and provided €9 million last year to fund inspections.

Each council spokesperson said they couldn’t comment on why the proportion of enforcement cases was much higher in Dublin City Council.

Gareth Redmond, a research and policy officer with the housing charity Threshold, says that the inspections figures can hide a lot.

The vast majority of properties fail inspections, he said. But those figures leave you with a question as to why they have failed, said Redmond.

Threshold has been teasing out the idea of figures based on a traffic-light system, he said. “With properties that properly failed that really should not be habitable, versus ones that failed on really tiny things,” he says. “It would be really interesting to see that data.”

What are the rules?

By law, privately rented homes have to meet certain basic standards. They have to be in a proper state of structural repair. Oil, gas and electricity must be in good working order and every room needs adequate ventilation and light.

Every home should also have hot and cold running water, fixed heating appliances in every room, a cooker and a washing machine. It should also have a smoke alarm, fire blanket and a carbon monoxide detector, according to the Department of Housing website.

If a council environmental health officer – or an outsourced contractor for the council – finds that a rental fails to meet minimum standards, they can write to the landlord and ask them to carry out work to bring it up to standard.

Not all rented homes that fail an inspection need to be re-inspected, says a spokesperson for the Department of Housing.

Sometimes the landlord can forward documentation proving an issue has been fixed, like an inspection by a registered electrical contractor or gas plumber, he says.

If the landlord fails to bring a property up to standard then the council can then issue an improvement notice, outlining what needs to be done – the first step towards enforcement.

“Where a landlord fails to comply with an Improvement Notice, the local authority may serve a Prohibition Notice (which directs that a dwelling cannot be re-let until all contraventions are remedied) and may consider instituting legal proceedings,” says the spokesperson for the Department of Housing. “These are very seldom required.”

Lax on enforcement?

Aside from its idea for richer data on inspections, Threshold has also been working on a call for more uniformity among different local authorities and those who they outsource enforcement to, said Redmond of Threshold. “To have more of a common set of criteria and checklist for that.”

Data published by the Department of Housing suggests a big difference between the four Dublin local authorities when it comes to enforcement.

In 2023, Dublin City Council wrote to 3,042 landlords to instruct them that they needed to do work and it issued improvement notices in 946 cases.

Dublin City Council also issued 106 prohibition notices, which prevent the landlord from re-renting the property until the work is done.

Meanwhile last year, South Dublin County Council wrote to 2,032 landlords to instruct them their property failed the inspection and they needed to do work – but it didn’t issue a single improvement notice or prohibition notice.

In response to queries, a spokesperson for South Dublin County Council reiterated the inspection figures. “South Dublin County Council does not comment on other Local Authorities,” said the spokesperson.

People Before Profit Councillor Madeleine Johansson says she doesn’t believe every single one of the 2,032 homes was brought into compliance after the first letter.

“There is absolutely no way,” she says. “Clearly there is something going on that needs to be examined to make sure that tenants are not being left in bad conditions, when there should be enforcement action taken by the council.”

In 2023, Fingal County Council wrote to 3,865 property owners to instruct them to carry out works because the home failed to meet the standards. But it issued only five improvement notices and two prohibition notices.

In 2022, Fingal County Council issued no improvement or prohibition notices, to any private landlord.

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council said the council re-inspects six weeks after issuing an improvement letter, including for minor contraventions of the standards.

“In many cases, there is no requirement to escalate the situation to an improvement notice and/or a prohibition notice,” says the spokesperson.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council issued 2,503 improvement letters to landlords in 2023. It issued 15 improvement notices and nine prohibition notices.

“At all times during the inspection process, [Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown] actively engages with landlords to support them in bringing their properties to compliance with the Regulations,” said a spokesperson there.

It may issue a second improvement letter if the landlord is engaging and only issues an improvement notice if they are not engaging or doing the works, he says.

Spokespeople for the three other councils said they couldn’t comment on why Dublin City Council progressed so many more cases to improvement and prohibition notices.

“Fingal is only responsible for enforcing the standards in its own area, so is unable to comment on any variance in enforcement processes other councils may utilise,” says the spokesperson for Fingal County Council.

“We cannot comment on the processes in other local authorities,” said a spokesperson for Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.