An investment of €23m in capital funding has been announced to carry out improvement works to social houses in Ireland.

€8m will be provided to local authorities for adaptations and extensions to social houses to meet needs of tenants with a disability or to address serious overcrowding.

Under the Social Housing Investment Programme, local authorities use suitable vacant stock to meet particular needs. However there are also situations where there is no option other than adapting or extending an existing dwelling.

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Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Alan Kelly TD, said: "While the local authority social housing stock provides homes to almost 130,000 families, as people age their needs change. Some people require adaptations and extensions to their homes in order to continue to live independently.

"I'm allocating €8m this year for these necessary adaptations and extensions and I'm confident that over 300 families will have an improvement to their quality of life as a result of this investment."

The Minister also announced that he is allocating a further €15m to be invested in upgrading the energy efficiency of local authority homes this year.

(CD/JP)