The chair of Dublin City Council's Housing Committee says reports that people are rejecting social homes are a distraction from the real problem.

Figures obtained by the Sunday Independent show one in four houses in Dublin city were turned down.

Of the 1,009 houses offered to people on the waiting list last year, 300 applicants turned them down or didn't respond to the offer.

Their reasons included them being too big or too small, apartments being on the ground floor or too high and the paper reports that some have also said they disliked the interior.

The refusal rate in Cork City Council however was lower than Dublin with 51 rejections out of 300 offers of housing.

"We're not in a crisis because people are refusing homes" says Chair of Dublin City Council's Housing Committee, Daithi Doolan.

"I will publicly ask the journalist to come with me to one of my advice clinics and hear the real stories, the traumas of people languishing on housing lists for years, people in cramped conditions in emergency accommodation".

"And then we have a splash headline, a cheap headline ... I don't know how true this is. I have no evidence to back this claim up".