There has been a fresh call for an independent investigation into how official housing bodies dealt with the recent adverse weather conditions.

The Sinn Fein Housing Spokesperson Fra McCann MLA has called on the Stormont Social Development Minister, Alex Attwood to undertake a probe.

Speaking from the Stormont Assembly, where Sinn Fein submitted the motion to the Assembly's Business Office, Mr McCann said: "If recent events have shown us anything it is that lessons must be learnt from how numerous organisations performed during the recent spell of adverse weather.

"Countless NI Housing Executive and housing association tenants experienced a poor standard of communication, response and engagement from the as well as their numerous subcontractors.

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"Our motion expresses deep concern at these obvious failings but calls for an investigation to establish how the NI Housing Executive and housing associations dealt with tens of thousands of requests for help from their tenants who suffered heating loss, burst and frozen pipes etc from December 18th onward," he said.

"We need to see real action taken by the Minister and the NI Housing Executive to ensure that lessons have indeed been learnt and that effective measures are put in place to ensure that there is no repeat of these failings on the scale we have seen over recent weeks."

On Friday, the Strangford DUP MLA Simon Hamilton also said that the NI Housing Executive has some 'serious questions' to answer about the extent of the impact of the recent thaw on the properties it owns.

Simon Hamilton - who is Chair of the Assembly's Social Development Committee - said that the fact that nearly one quarter of all of the Housing Executive's stock has had repair orders raised as a direct result of the thaw is extremely worrying.

"Colleagues across the country have raised their concerns with me especially about communications and it is my intention to raise these issues at our next Social Development Committee meeting and if it is the Committee's wish quiz the NI Housing Executive directly about them," the DUP MLA said last week.

(BMcC/GK)