As the housing market continues its plunge, leaving houses languishing on the market for months unsold, housing associations and the Housing Executive are also coming under intense pressure to buy developers' excess stock.

One senior DSD official privately said that developers "who never came near us during the good times" were now phoning senior civil servants on a daily basis, trying to sell their unwanted properties for social housing.

But Ms Ritchie said that her primary concern was not developers' fortunes.

"My first priority is to ensure that the social housing targets are met, that the needs of those on the waiting list are met – and in so doing if I help developers, that is well and good," she said.

"We are using government money – taxpayers' money – to buy social housing so we need to make the money go as far as it possibly can."

And she said that the Province's housing boom was unsustainable.

"When you have a situation where prices are 10 times the average income, the bubble has to burst some time," she said.

Asked who was to blame for the bubble developing, she said: "It was not the fault of anyone in Northern Ireland, I think it was the fault of global bankers."

But she said she did not know of any way in which the Assembly could have intervened to prevent the increase in Northern Ireland house prices.

"I think a large proportion of the public would not be all that happy about you trying to control the market anyway."