The first of 2,900 new homes in Dublin by approved housing body Respond are expected to be ready for people to move into next September.
Respond spokesperson Niamh Randall said the cost rental homes will be in four different Dublin locations - Charlestown, Clonburris, Donaghmede and Tallaght - and will be "truly integrated schemes" with both social and cost rental homes.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, she said the first homes will be available in Clonburris and the rest will become available in a phased manner.
Ms Randall said the cost rental tenure, which is a new ten-year type in Ireland, is where the cost of the rent is based on the cost of building, developing and maintaining the homes.
"People moving in on a gradual basis works really well for the tenants but also in terms of kind of managing the allocation process as well. So that's what we'll manage on an ongoing basis," she said.
Ms Randall said Respond will be the landlord for all of the homes and will be responsible for delivering and maintaining the properties.
She said the schemes have been 12 months in the planning across four Dublin local authorities.
Social housing homes will be allocated through the local authorities, she said, while different criteria apply to the cost rental homes.
There is an income threshold of up to €66,000 and people who do not own their own home and do not qualify for social housing can apply for the cost rental homes, she said.
However potential tenants must be able to demonstrate they can pay the rent before they are entered into a lottery system for the house.
Meanwhile, Ms Randall said the situation with emergency accommodation is really challenging and Respond currently has 79 families in emergency accommodation settings.
Seeing children in these settings at Christmas time is "really, really difficult", she said, adding that people are staying in emergency accommodation for around 11 months because there is a shortage of accommodation for them to move into.
