The government is being urged to provide additional funding to local authorities to develop more social homes.

Sinn Fein made the call after it was revealed that the construction projects currently planned will only meet the housing need of 11% of the 99,555 households on the waiting list.

Housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD said: "It is clear from the data contained in the Department of Housing’s Social Housing Construction Projects Status Report for Q2 2017 that the social housing construction projects currently in the pipeline will only meet the need of 11% of the current housing waiting list.

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"The projects detailed in the report include local authority and approved housing body builds. Most of the figures do not make for happy reading.

"For example, in my own constituency, South Dublin County Council only has 566 units in the pipeline to meet a current social housing need of 8,181, just 6.9%.

"Some counties fare marginally better, Monaghan has a social housing list of 477 households and has 179 housing units in the pipeline. Limerick, Louth, Sligo, and Kilkenny all look set to meet the needs of just over 20% of their respective housing lists.

"At the other end of the scale in Dublin City and Cork County where the housing list is 19,782 and 6,948 respectively, only 9% of social housing need will be met by the projects in the pipeline. In Kildare, only 3.9% of need will be met.

"We need at a minimum 10,000 social housing units per year. The government must scale up their targets and provide additional funding to local authorities in order to get more projects in the pipeline."

(CD/MH)