Council confident of private rental inspections targets
SOUTH Dublin County Council is confident of reaching targets for private rental inspections this year despite “playing catch up.”
The most recent Residential Tenancy Board tenancy register audited figured for SDCC has 17,079 registered private rented tenancies in its administrative areas.
Speaking at the recent council meeting, Cllr Carly Bailey (SocDems) said: “It does appear we are having difficulties in arranging inspections for regular rented properties.”
She asked the chief executive if targets mentioned for this year are “feasible.”
Cllr Madeleine Johansson (PBP) asked how enforcement was going to be implemented when resources are slim.
“If we are struggling to have the resources to inspect properties, then we can’t enforce it, and it becomes a completely pointless exercise,” said Cllr Johansson.
Daniel McLoughlin, SDCC chief executive said they were “playing catch-up to a degree” but they will “reach the targets” they have set this year and hope to “exceed them.”
Aside from “Covid barriers”, he said they have “always exceeded their targets.”
“I do fully appreciate the references to non-compliance, but some are for the tiniest of issues,” said Mr McLoughlin.
“All issues are important, but please understand these are not structural issues. They are small issues in relation to technical compliance. We do follow-up inspections, and have capacity to do enforcement, as does the RTB where complaints are made directly to there.
“I get the sense of frustration from some of the questions that maybe we aren’t inspecting all of the properties. Between RAS, HAP and leasing, we have about 6,000 properties, on top of the 10,000 properties that we own ourselves. While it isn’t possible to inspect all of them annually, we do aim to get to them on a rotational basis.”
Cllr Bailey ask for a report on private rented inspections over the last five years, including RAS and HAP.
In response, SDCC said they conducted a total of 10,701 inspections and follow-up inspections on properties between 2018 and the first quarter of 2022.
