The social housing waiting list contained 44,000 households, Sinn Féin's social affairs spokesman Seán Crowe told the House.
"Social housing output, as a percentage of overall annual housing output, has fallen dramatically in the last four years from around 10 per cent in 2002 to 5.8 per cent in 2005," he added.
"Less than 5 per cent of the homes completed in the first three months of this year were for local authority tenants. Of the 81,000 houses built last year, only 830 were in the social and affordable sector."
Mr Crowe was introducing his party's Private Member's motion proposing that people who own more than one house should be taxed.
He said the Government was 15,000 units short of the volume of social and affordable housing it committed itself to deliver by the end of the year in the National Development Plan. Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (SF, Cavan-Monaghan) claimed that the Government's approach to housing was driven "by the lust for profits of the land speculators and the developers".
Minister of State for Housing Noel Ahern said that Part V of the Housing and Planning and Development Act was a key measure in providing housing for all the community, especially those in need of social and affordable housing.
