People have been prosecuted, fined, and jailed for carrying out illegal gas work. It keeps happening anyway. The boiler in your rental property or your neighbour's house might have been fitted by someone who had no business touching it.

Carbon monoxide kills quietly. No smell, no warning, no second chance. And the gap between a badly installed boiler and a body bag can be measured in weeks.

Why This Is Still Happening

The economics are simple and grim. An unregistered engineer undercuts a registered one by several hundred euro. The landlord or homeowner takes the cheaper quote. Nobody checks. Nobody asks to see a card.

In Ireland, anyone working on gas installations must be registered with the Register of Gas Installers of Ireland, known as RGII. That is not a guideline. It is a legal requirement under the Gas Act 1976 and subsequent regulations. An engineer not on that register should not be touching your gas appliances, full stop.

Recent prosecutions in both Ireland and the UK have shown courts are no longer treating this as a paperwork issue. Custodial sentences are being handed down. One case involved an unregistered engineer who fitted a boiler in a family home, left an unsafe flue, and was convicted after carbon monoxide poisoning hospitalised a child. The fine was the least of his problems.

Yet enforcement is reactive. Inspectors do not knock on doors before someone gets sick. The first line of defence is the person commissioning the work.

What Illegal Gas Work Looks Like

You are not expected to be a gas engineer. But you can spot the signs of someone who is not one either.

No RGII card. Ask before work starts. A registered engineer carries an RGII card with their name, photo, and registration number. You can verify any card at rgii.ie in about thirty seconds. If they refuse to show it, or say they left it in the van, or claim the website is out of date, stop the job.

No certificate of completion. Every registered gas engineer in Ireland must issue a certificate of conformance after carrying out an installation or service. If you never received one, the work may not have been done by someone authorised to issue it.

Cash only, no paperwork. This is not proof of illegal work on its own, but combined with reluctance to show credentials, it is a significant flag.

Flue pipe that looks improvised. A boiler flue should be purpose-built, correctly angled, properly sealed where it exits the building, and positioned away from windows and vents. If yours looks like someone solved a puzzle with bits they had in the back of the van, that is worth examining.

Boiler not commissioned properly. A registered engineer sets the boiler to the manufacturer's specifications and records the readings. If nobody walked you through the controls, left you a manual, or explained the settings, there is a reasonable chance the commissioning stage was skipped.

Visible flex connectors or tape on gas pipework. Flexible push-fit connectors designed for water have been found on gas pipes in illegal installations. Gas pipework should use proper fittings. Tape on a joint is a warning sign, not a fix.

If You Are a Landlord

Your legal obligations under the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations are not optional. Gas appliances in rented properties must be serviced annually by a registered engineer, and you must keep records.

If you discover that a previous installation was carried out by an unregistered person, you cannot simply leave it in place and hope. Get a registered engineer to inspect it before the next tenant moves in. They will assess whether the installation is safe, bring it up to standard if possible, or condemn it if it is not.

Ignoring it is not a neutral decision. If a tenant is harmed by a defective installation you knew about, or should have known about, the legal exposure is severe. The Residential Tenancies Board and the courts have made clear that gas safety is a landlord responsibility, not a tenant's problem to discover.

Carbon Monoxide: What to Know

Carbon monoxide poisoning symptoms are easy to misread. Headaches, nausea, dizziness, and confusion. People assume they have a flu. They go to bed. Some of them do not wake up.

Every home with a gas boiler should have a carbon monoxide alarm. Not a heat detector. A carbon monoxide detector, positioned near the boiler and in sleeping areas. They cost around 25 to 40 euro. That is not a significant investment compared to the alternative.

If an alarm sounds, or if multiple people in a household feel unwell at the same time and feel better when they go outside, treat it as a carbon monoxide emergency. Get everyone out, leave the door open, call 999 or 112, and do not go back inside until the building has been checked.

What to Do If You Suspect Illegal Work

If you find evidence of illegal gas work in a property you own, have bought, or are renting, the steps are straightforward.

First, stop using the appliance if you have any concern about safety. Second, get a registered RGII engineer in to inspect the installation. Third, report the unregistered engineer to RGII and to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities. The CRU takes these reports seriously, and it is how enforcement starts.

If you are a tenant and your landlord refuses to act, you can escalate to the Residential Tenancies Board and to your local Environmental Health Officer. You have a right to a safe property. That right does not disappear because your landlord is slow to respond.

The Actual Check Takes Thirty Seconds

Go to rgii.ie. Type in the name or registration number. That is the entire process. A registered engineer will not mind you doing it. An unregistered one will mind a great deal.

The qualification exists because gas work done badly kills people in their sleep. Checking a card before someone starts work is not excessive caution. It is the minimum.