Sinn Fein housing spokesperson Dessie Ellis TD has blasted the government's failure to address record levels of severe housing need in the state, which have grown under the Fine Gael Labour coalition.

He made his comments as new figures released this week show the numbers on housing waiting lists has risen by 12,827 to 111,145 in just two years.

Deputy Ellis said: "This is another clear sign of the complete failure of this government to address the social needs of the people of this state.

"Fianna Fáil allowed a housing crisis to develop particularly in Dublin over their many years in government. Now Fine Gael and Labour are doing nothing to fix that as housing needs grows rapidly and gets more severe.

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"Housing for the people should be a priority for this government, it is a basic right but so far all we have had is rhetoric. As 14.5% of dwellings in the state lie vacant we have housing need doubling in 5 years. NAMA has delivered a tiny fraction of its promised housing and Dublin City Council will build just 19 additional homes by the end of 2014.

"Rents are up year on year and tenancies are less and less stable allowing slums to reappear in urban centres. Kids are missing school, sick from unhealthy housing conditions. This is a crisis which demands immediate attention.

"Earlier this year I put forward a costed plan to begin building 9000 homes over the next two years. The government ignored it. I plead with them to revisit this plan before this crisis gets even worse."

(CD/JP)