Zero landlords prosecuted in last three years, DCC reveals

Dublin City Council has revealed that zero landlords have been prosecuted for violating basic rental property standards within the last three years.

Responding to a question tabled by Labour councillor Declan Meenagh, DCC said that while letters and prohibition notices were often issued, prosecutions have not occurred since 2019.

“Everyone knows that we have a poorly regulated residential rental market in Ireland,” Meenagh says.

“The standards are minimal and landlords feel they can get away with anything and there is minimal consequences.

“For ordinary people thrown to the mercy of the free for all rental market, it is disheartening to see so few prosecutions.

“If the government really cared about tenants rights’ they would properly resource local authorities and would give extra resources to the court services to allow these cases to go forward, but of course the government is only interested in supporting landlords.

“On top of better standards, Labour is calling for a massive increase in state building of social and affordable housing, an end to no fault evictions and an eviction ban to stop the wave of evictions we are facing.”

Dublin City Council says the lack of prosecutions is due to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent backlog.

“In 2020 – 2021 Covid restrictions meant that legal proceedings from 2019 did not proceed to court,” it said.

“Due to a backlog with both inspections and also within the courts service itself no new legal proceedings were initiated in 2022. This is currently being reviewed for 2023.

“Enforcement activity in 2022 in terms of improvement notices served and prohibition notices served in respect of con-compliant properties, increased significantly, with a record number of prohibition notices served.”

The local authority says that when a notice is issued, the property is often brought up to standard.

“Prohibition notices often result in a property becoming compliant with the legislation, for those that don’t the next step is initiating legal proceedings,” it says.

“We would anticipate that in 2023, legal proceedings may be initiated in a number of these cases.”

In 2018, 28 legal proceedings were brought against landlords while that figure rose to 55 in 2019.

Zero legal proceedings were initiated in 2020, 2021 and 2022 but 138 prohibition notices were served in 2022, more than the previous four years combined.