Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore has expressed concern about the number of vacant local authority houses.

He told the Dáil today about 3 per cent of the local authority housing stock was not in use. While this would include the natural turnover arising at any time when tenancies ended, there were a number of local authority dwellings vacant for an unacceptably long time.

“Those are issues which have to be dwelt with,’’ he added. “I would hope that local authorities, with the resources being provided for in the budget, would get to grips [with the issue] and that we will not see the continuing problem of dwellings idle for a long time.’’

Mr Gilmore was replying to Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien, who said families were languishing on the housing list because of past and present governments. The number of people on local authority housing lists continued to rise, with the figure now close to 112,000 families throughout the State.

Meanwhile, he added, 3,500 council houses lay idle.

Mr Gilmore said approximately 5,000 additional social housing units would be provided in 2014. “We are also on track to secure 500 social housing units from Nama this year and will deliver 2,000 units through Nama throughout the lifetime of the Government,’’ he added.