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.”