Sinn Fein has slammed the Housing Minister of "turning his back" on the key recommendation of the cross party Dáil Housing and Homeless Committee report.

The report recommended increasing the stock of homes owned by Councils and Approved Housing Bodies by 10,000 units a year.

The party's housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD said Minister Eoghan Murphy's approach is bad for the tenants and more expensive to the taxpayer.

Deputy Ó Broin said: "Last year, a special Dáil Housing and Homeless Committee met for seven weeks to examine the housing crisis. We heard from 40 individuals and organisations and received 90 written submissions. Our final cross party report made a series of recommendations to the incoming Fine Gael government.

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"One of the most important recommendations was that the stock of housing owned by Local Authorities and Approved Housing Bodies must increase by a minimum of 10,000 a year.

"When Simon Coveney, as Minister for Housing, announced the Governments Housing Action Plan he fell far short of this. However, with a new Taoiseach and Minister for Housing, there was an expectation that this would change.

"Unfortunately, last week's 2018 Budget announcement did little to change this. There was no increase in social housing targets for 2018 and a limited increase in the targets from 2019 to 2021 of an extra 1,000 homes per year."

(CD/MH)