Labour has hit out at the government for not providing any additional money to develop council homes throughout Ireland.

Councillor Niall McNelis said the government is failing to tackle the housing crisis in a "meaningful way" and said no plans have been put forward to bring in an affordable housing scheme.

He said: "Over the last two years the Labour Party has put forward a number of ideas and proposals to resolve the housing crisis, all of which Fine Gael and their supporters Fianna Fáil have refused to bring in.

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"Labour was the first party to call for vacant homes to be brought back into use, and the CSO figures show that there are nearly 4,000 empty homes in Galway city. Over a year on we are still waiting on the Government to publish the Vacant Homes Strategy.

"To cap rent increases at the rate of inflation to stop the gouging of renters and bring in a robust NCT style system to inspect rental properties to ensure they are up to standard. Voted down by FG and FF.

"The re-purposing of NAMA as a National Housing Development and Finance Agency to intervene in the market and deliver affordable housing developments. The State must take a much more active role in financing public housing by picking up the slack from where private developers have failed. Instead FG have brought in a slush fund for developers while FF called for tax cuts.

"Labour's Alternative Budget had fully funded proposals to build an extra 5,000 public homes in 2018 to bring the total to be delivered in 2018 to nearly 11,000 homes."

(CD)