The Department of Housing failed to spend over €1 billion of its capital budget for housing between 2020 and 2022.
Last year, the first full year of the Government's Housing for All plan, over €471 million was unspent.
The department has said that the underspend was largely due to the impact of Covid-19 restrictions on the construction sector and inflation prompted by the invasion of Ukraine.
Overall, the Department of Housing recorded an underspend in excess of €1.5 billion between 2020 and 2022.
However, this expenditure also included spending in the areas of water services, local government, planning, Met Éireann and administration.
The figures were provided to Sinn Féin's Housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin through written parliamentary questions.
Deputy Ó Broin said that the over €1 billion underspend in the area of capital expenditure on housing represented "up to 4,000 social and affordable homes that Darragh O'Brien has failed to deliver".
"The reason why this money hasn't been spent is because of the excessive levels of red tape and bureaucracy imposed by Darragh O'Brien and his department on local authorities and approved housing bodies," he said.
In total, between 2020 and the end of last year, €1,004,926,000 of the housing capital allocation was unspent.
The underspend was €92,711,000 in 2020. However, this rose significantly the following year, 2021, when €441,074,000 was not spent.
Last year, 2022, the underspend increased further to €471,141,000.
The Department of Housing explained that up to 10% of the capital allocation can be carried over from one year to the next.
There is also a provision, where significant capital projects are delivered beyond the calendar year in which they were initially anticipated, the capital can transfer to meet the commitment up to a maximum of 10%.
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Despite the Department of Housing failing to spend over €471 million of the capital allocation last year, the Housing for All delivery target of 24,600 homes was exceeded with almost 30,000 homes delivered.
In a statement it said that "2022 saw the highest level of housing expenditure ever in a single year, with almost €3.5 billion expended on housing, representing an increase of 21% on 2021".
