The government has been urgently called to do more to use funding allocated through the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF).

Fianna Fail made the call after it was revealed that less than 2 percent of the funding allocated to 15 Local Authorities has been used.

TD John Curran confirmed over €27 million was made available to South Dublin County Council to prompt housing development in the area, however not a single cent of the fund has been allocated.

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He said: "The areas identified by South Dublin County Council are all prime urban sites suitable for social and affordable housing development. It is therefore difficult to fathom why such funding wouldn’t be drawn down to urgently aid the construction of housing and alleviate the market.

"It is very disappointing to learn that there is no sense of urgency to utilise this available funding considering that so many families and young couples in the locality are desperate for housing.

"Week in week out this Government are claiming to be doing everything it can to allay the crisis in homelessness, particularly here in Dublin, but that is clearly not the case given the abysmal uptake of local authority funding. More must be done to encourage the use of the €27 million fund in South Dublin."