Junior Housing Minister Noel Ahern has said the Government was not denying there was a problem with house prices but that efforts were being made to ease the problem.
Mr Ahern said that 68,800 new dwelling units were built in the country last year, a 19% increase on 2002 and the ninth year in a row of record production.
Mr Ahern said that increasing house prices were a negative side effect of a booming economy.
The minister also said that Government policy was centred on increasing supply, and that if supply could be kept at the level it is now, it would equal demand in a few years, thus creating a better situation for buyers.
Mr Ahern was responding to a new study on affordability of Irish housing, details of which were published today. It found that nearly half of all those living in Dublin and a third nationally will not be able to afford a home in two years’ time.
