Continued capital investment by the Government in the State's infrastructure was necessary if the current building boom was to continue, the new president of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) said yesterday.

Mr Joe Tiernan, of Tiernan Home Builders, referred to "inadequacies" in some Government policies "at both national and local level".

Turnover in the construction industry is expected to exceed £8 billion this year and overtake agriculture as the biggest employment sector, the CIF stated.

Mr Tiernan said that provision of zoned, serviced land was needed to avoid the bottleneck which had "disastrous consequences for first-time buyers in particular". Mr George Hennessy, CIF director of economic affairs, added that demand for residential, retail and industrial land depended on environmental infrastructure. Key projects were not advancing "as we would expect" such as the Port Access Tunnel from Santry to Dublin Port and the Luas scheme, he said. "How we plan and plan in advance is critically important. The concerns are that we must ensure that the planning system is working effectively and is coping with the additional pressures being put on it," he said.