Tinkering around with stamp duty is "only deck chairs on the Titanic" says planning and development consultant William K Nowlan, commenting on the third Bacon Report. The solution to the housing supply problem in Dublin, he believes, is in the hands of "the people with the pipes".

There are no quick-fix answers to the housing supply problem, says Nowlan, who advocates a long-term investment in infrastructure.

"Bacon puts his finger on the problem in the report. It has nothing to do with land hoarding or zoning, but with the level of infrastructure. I see everybody writing papers but there has been no action on the ground. The Bacon Report makes the political token gesture on stamp duty, but I don't see any radical decisions being made where it counts. On the cutting edge, not an additional acre of land is being serviced. Progress is abysmally slow; all of the programmes listed are manana."

"Bacon spells out that water and sewerage are in the hands of the local authorities who are trying to do an impossible job with inadequate numbers of technical staff. They are hidebound by the procedural structure. We need a focused, single-purpose organisation and dedicated executives to concentrate on infrastructure. The county managers have a million things to do."

The planning system is in need of "a dramatic overhaul", according to Ken MacDonald of Hooke and MacDonald Auctioneers. "It is creaking and has proved incapable of dealing with the demand for the volume of accommodation required in an expanding economy. It is inefficient both at local and at national level. On a major development, it can take two years to get planning permission, which is totally unreasonable."

Arthur Hickey, President of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland (RIAI), recently called for a new forum of planners, architects and government representatives to oversee improvements in the planning system.

"What I was asking for is that amid all the hype and pressure going on over housing that we don't make a serious mistake,` says Hickey. "We have to build in some safeguards so that someone is watching the overall picture not just the micro issues like planning applications. Someone with vision who can see the overall situation and who can visualise what we will need in our towns and cities in a couple of years time."

"The local authorities need to look and see how they can make themselves more efficient," adds Hickey.

"The administrative staff could maybe be employed to do specific tasks. The planning application form could be standardised for all local authorities and there could be increased use of consultants to help staff of the local authorities who are under pressure. The Minister for the Environment has said he has no objections to this."

Any forum that is set up should include substantial representation from those at the coalface of the problem - planners and housebuilders - says Sean Dunne, Managing Director of Mountbrook Homes.

"There is a great misguided belief that housebuilders are sitting on large tracts of land and dictating the supply of houses to the market. The identification in Bacon Three of the necessity to establish Strategic Development Zones (SDZs) which will open up 40,000 units is proof positive that this is totally incorrect. It should be borne in mind that to develop a scheme of 100 houses will today involve an outlay of anything from £10 to £20 million, with interest payments alone likely to run to £1 million at seven per cent per annum. While housebuilders may be perceived as speculators and gamblers, over 90 per cent of them would relish the opportunity to be able to build out all of their schemes over the next two years."

Only 25 planners graduate from UCD each year, when it is estimated that 75 are needed to meet current requirements. "Most planning departments have a siege mentality, they cannot cope," says William Nowlan.

"There is a requirement for 750 qualified town planners in Ireland and there are only about 350 in the country. You must also take into account the 12 to 14 per cent retirement rate each year."

Inadequately prepared Action Area Plans by local authorities can also scupper potential housing developments. A planning application submitted by Gannon Homes for 494 houses, 1,139 duplex units and 311 apartments as well as office and retail units and industrial buildings at Grange Road, Donaghmede, Dublin 13, was recently refused on the grounds that the action area plan for the area had not been approved and the drainage system was still deficient.

Ciaran Ryan, director of the Irish Home Builders Association, believes that more planning consultants should be brought in to help local authority staff.

"Planners in the private sector are as qualified. They know the requirements and can draw up an Action Area Plan. The plan still has to be subject to public consultation and must still be debated and adopted by councillors."

Sean Dunne advocates that planning consultants be brought in on a rota system basis. "They could evaluate schemes in excess of 100 houses on behalf of the local authorities with the obvious safeguards that no consultant could evaluate a scheme on behalf of a developer for whom they had previously worked."

BACON Three also addresses the issue of housing densities. There are plans to redevelop brownfield sites in the greater Dublin area and in proximity to public transport nodes and access points which would reduce the need for the development of greenfield sites. According to Arthur Hickey we are sprawling "too far out, eating up valuable land".

"On the train to Belfast, when you get up past Skerries there are eight houses to an acre, which is a great waste of resources. Greater densities would reduce traffic, the cost of infrastructure and the cost of houses." Martin Walsh, head of lending at the EBS agrees: "This country has a low population density so people don't need to move out so far where they have to commute for long hours. There should be very high minimum densities. That doesn't mean slums, it means more houses close to the city centre, close to public transport routes."

Previous Government directives regarding density guidelines have been and continue to be ignored by many local authorities, according to Sean Dunne.

"Until the residential guidelines issued in September, 1999, come into law, the majority of planners are likely to continue the approach that they are not bound by guidelines but by their own development plan."

To meet demand, the supply of houses in Dublin needs to be increased to 20,000 per annum. Last year 10,000 residential units were built.

"At the end of the day private house-builders are the people who are going to solve this problem," says Ryan. "We are not the cause of it but we are a significant part of the solution. But we need the Government to work with us. We want to resolve it because it's in our own interests to do so, but first the issues of infrastructure and Action Area Plans need to be addressed. Get the house in order and we'll build."