2,500 NAMA homes rejected by local authorities last year

Local councils last year turned down nearly 2,500 homes offered by NAMA for social housing.

The councils have been criticised for rejecting homes while there is a housing and homelessness crisis.

However, there are a number of reasons why some of the houses were rejected - including bad location and poor build quality.

Lorcan Sirr, Housing lecturer in the Dublin Institute of Technology, says the councils sometimes have good reasons for turning down NAMA housing: “Not every house that is offered is a suitable house for a county council.

“County councils, local authorities, have their own strategies, their own budgets for dealing with their social housing so some of the reasons a county council would refuse a house from NAMA would be A: in a bad location, it’s in a location that doesn’t suit the county council.

“The other reason is that an awful lot of the properties that are handed over are rejected because of poor quality.

“We have a legacy of really poor building quality in Ireland.”