A Dublin TD says the repossession of family homes needs to be stopped immediately and other solutions found like extending the term of a mortgage or transferring ownership.

Fianna Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien was speaking as the Dáil’s special housing committee is due to report this week.

He said that there is political will across the board to tackle the problem.

The Fingal politician also believes that we need to start building more council homes.

“The very first thing you can do is give certainty to those who have repossession orders over their heads that the family home won’t be repossessed,” he said.

“Solutions can be worked out – transfer of ownership, stretching mortgage terms out.

“If you take Dublin, for example, in the last five years, less than 500 social houses were built for all of Dublin city and county, where you have well over 50,000 people and families on the housing list.”