€5m investment in social housing from Fingal council

Fingal County Council is to invest €5m in social housing.

The head of the local authority, Paul Reid, made the announcement at a meeting of councillors last night.

It is hoped that local reps will get the chance to decide the size of the new homes and propose locations for them.

It follows the latest figures from Focus Ireland which show 40 families became homeless in August in Dublin alone.

"€5m sounds like an awful amount of money," said SF Councillor Paul Donnelly, "it is scratching the surface, [but] we'll probably get in the region of 20-25 units."