Taoiseach Enda Kenny has blamed local authorities for contributing to the State’s housing problem.

“I think it is important to note that local authorities, in the past number of years, have not measured up to being able to build social housing to the extent it was needed,’’ he said in the Dáil on Tuesday.

Mr Kenny was speaking after the launch of the Government’s housing plan.

The House will begin debating the plan later on Tuesday.

At Leaders' Questions, the Taoiseach said local authorities would now have opportunities in terms of funding incentives for housing and an expedited capacity for An Bord Pleanála to deal with planning applications.

He said it was a case now of seeing if local authorities could measure up to the challenges they had been given and their new resources.

Housing problem

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said the question was very much open on whether the local authorities could be blamed for the housing mess of the past five years and the inability to get to grips with the homeless problem.

Addressing the Government benches, Mr Martin said: “I can remember being here at Leaders’ Questions when you guys denied there was a problem for a long time.’’

He said it was not fair to blame the local authorities entirely.

He said that, given the housing emergency, it was a scandal that there was any empty house in the State.

The Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett described the Government's plans as "a mirage and false dawn''.