Six hundred houses, or fewer than 1 per cent of all houses built last year, were built under a Government plan to require builders to devote one-fifth of their developments to social and affordable housing.
According to figures supplied to the Dáil Public Accounts Committee (Pac), just 809 houses have been built under Part V of the Planning Act, which requires builders of housing developments of five units or more to give over one-fifth of the development to social and affordable housing.
Officials from the Department of the Environment yesterday admitted the figures were low, but blamed this on the fact that many of the developments built in recent years were not covered by the legislation as they had received initial planning permission.
Changes had also been introduced by the Government to ease the requirements, allowing builders to give money or other sites instead of building the social and affordable houses.
Answering questions from Mr Seán Fleming TD, the Department of the Environment's secretary general Niall Callan rejected suggestions that, based on the number of housing completions last year, the number of Part V homes should have been closer to 10,000. In 2004, just under 80,000 apartments and houses were built.
Mr Callan said the section was expected to deliver 1,600 houses this year and that, coupled with local authority schemes, between 10,000 and 11,000 social and affordable houses would be built over the next three years.
"We would say the process is gathering momentum," Mr Callan told the committee.
Meanwhile it has also emerged during the meeting that a €6 million upgrade of a sewage treatment facility in Kilkenny has not taken place despite the grant having been made three years ago.
Pac's deputy chairman John McGuinness said the River Nore was being "constantly polluted" from sludge from the current plant near Kilkenny city, and it was now the subject of a written complaint to the European Commission.
Mr Callan acknowledged there were difficulties in some regions regarding the construction of such facilities, but said that water pollution was an enforcement priority for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Mr Callan also defended Ireland's environmental record after Green TD Dan Boyle said the State was currently the subject of eight infringement proceedings by the European Commission over failures to implement environmental legislation.
Mr Boyle criticised the fact that the department had made no financial contingencies for fines of up to €10,000 a day from the European Court of Justice for each infringement of which the State is found guilty.
Mr Callan said this was because his department did not believe it would lose any of the cases.
The Department of the Environment also provided up-to-date figures on the Mahon planning tribunal, which showed that it had cost the State €38 million since it was established eight years ago and was expected to cost €13.5 million this year.