The Government's action plan for housing will be ready over the summer, but its implementation will have already begun, Minister for Housing Simon Coveney has said.
Mr Coveney told the Oireachtas Housing Committee that he and Taoiseach Enda Kenny met with local authority officials on 12 May and said they reaffirmed his department's efforts to expedite delivery of social housing.
He said he wanted to see proper planning, infrastructure and facilities going in before development begins.
The action plan is part of the Programme for Government and has been promised within the first 100 days of Government.
As the 100 days target falls in the middle of August, he said, it may be September.
He said his only objective was to get better outcomes, to respond to people's dire need.
Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin welcomed the minister's commitment to a cross-party approach.
Mr Ó Broin said he was concerned about an over-reliance on the private sector and said there should be a broadening of those eligible for social housing and the model of funding also needed to be tackled.
He raised the problems with public procurement and called for better management of vacant housing stock.
Minister Coveney said he did not disagree with Mr Ó Broin's view on the need for more social housing.
He said the reliance on the private sector alone, through supported rent schemes, has resulted in core social housing stock falling.
But he said the kind of social housing he wanted to see, was integrated in private developments, as opposed to having social housing in one part of the city and predominately private in another part.
The minister said there would be some direct build social housing estates, but he did not want to repeat the mistakes of decades ago where we have huge areas of only social housing.
On the procurement side, he said they could put together an agreed list of approved contracts that local authorities can pick from, rather than go through a long procurement.
Mr Coveney said the latest Central Statistics Office figures on vacant properties would be used and it would be determined if these could be used for social houses.
"If we could buy these for social housing, it would be a lot quicker than building", he said.
He said there was enough planning permission for 27,000 homes and enough zoned land for 88,000 houses.
Half required some infrastructure, but not high cost. He said there were 4,440 units under construction in Dublin.
"There is significant potential to dramatically ramp-up housing building in Dublin", he said.
