The outgoing Environment Minister has said it will be the year after next before sufficient numbers of social houses are being built.

Alan Kelly has appeared before the Dáil’s special housing and homelessness committee which has been tasked with coming up with solutions in a matter of weeks.

He has said appointing a Cabinet Minister for Housing will not work unless that person gets powers such as taxation from Finance and rent supplement from the Department of Social Protection.

He has said the work he has done to get houses built will not be seen for a number of years: “If we were going to produce a huge volume of houses now, immediately this year, they should have been planned three years ago.

“Plain and simple fact of the matter is we didn’t have the money.

“I accept the number of houses built is small, this year there will be hundreds of houses built, because of the work that was done in many cases precedingly.

“But the year after that it will be thousands, and the year after that it will up near the figure that I want which is 10,000.”