Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is reportedly considering establishing a new semi-state agency to oversee the delivery of social homes.

However, Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said "it is not a good idea".

The Dublin Mid-West TD also said that he "doubted the Minister would be foolish enough to support such a proposal".

Mr Ó Broin said: "We already have an infrastructure for delivering social and affordable housing; it's called Local Councils. The problem is that they have been starved of capital investment and staff. They also have to comply with an overly bureaucratic approval process for social housing delivery which can take up to 24 months before a single brick is laid on any given project.

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"Setting up a new state agency would take at least a year and face the same funding and bureaucracy issues that are currently holding Councils back. What Minister Murphy needs to do is increase the targets for social housing deliver to 10,000 real social houses a year. This needs to be backed up by real investment in social housing in Budget. And then the Minister must move swiftly to cut the red tape in social housing approval down to six months to ensure the houses are delivered."

(CD/MH)