Sinn Féin has hit out at the government over its "highly dubious" decision to refuse to lift the €2 million social housing cap.

An agreement was reached in Budget 2019 to increase the discretionary cap for Local Authority spending on social housing from €2m to €6m. Last week, it was confirmed the cap would not be increased.

Calling out Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy on the decision, Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin TD said: "Following on from Minister Murphy's comments in the Housing Committee last week where he labelled such a change as 'reckless' and a Department of Housing memo leaked to the Irish Times indicated that they believe that such a change could lead to cost overruns.

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"It is our view that the government's rationale for refusing to lift the €2m Cap is highly dubious. It is not the case that the Department of Housing would be left on the hook for cost overruns.

"Cost overruns in the single stage approvals process are the responsibility of the individual local authorities.

"The real lesson from this debacle is that Fine Gael has no interest in speeding up the delivery of social housing and Fianna Fáil cannot be trusted on housing, or anything else for that matter.

"As these two parties continue with their phoney budget war, Sinn Féin has proposals that would speed up the delivery of social homes without compromising on standards. We would cut the time for the approvals, tendering and procurement process for public housing from 18 to 14 months to 6-9 months."

(CM/JG)