Sid McDowell said he intends to seek an early meeting with social development minister Maurice Morrow to seek assurances on the issue.

Responding to Friday's announcement by Mr Morrow, that Housing Executive rent rises would be kept down to three percent, Mr McDowell said the executive's maintenance plan was based on a higher level of rent.

"This level of increase means that the Housing Executive will have less finance than planned to fund its maintenance and improvement programmes next year," the executive chairman said.

"The Housing Executive is not yet in a position to advise upon the precise impact of this change.

"We want the opportunity to examine the implications on the housing programme before discussing the details with the minister and his departmental officials," he said.

Mr McDowell said that in real terms the rent cap will mean that the executive will have �4m less for essential maintenance work.

The rise will mean Housing Executive tenants will pay an extra �1.34 a week for a three-bedroom terraced house and �1.24 for a two-bedroomed bungalow.

For the majority of tenants, 96,000, the increase will be paid through state benefit payments.

However, Mr McDowell said the reduction was good news for the 27,000 executive tenants who do not receive housing benefit and pay rent out of their own incomes.

Mr Morrow had been under increasing pressure from the Northern Ireland Assembly's Social Development Committee not to increase rents by GDP plus two percent, a rise of four-and-a-half percent.

'Insufficient funding'

But Fred Cobain, chairman of the Social Development Committee, while welcoming the reduction, said he feared that the minister was merely "robbing Peter to pay Paul".