The Taoiseach has been accused of irresponsibly "talking up" the housing market, despite warnings it was overvalued and posed a risk to the economy.
Speaking in the Dáil this morning, Green Party leader Trevor Sargent questioned whether positive comments made by Mr Ahern on the housing market last month were connected to what he called Fianna Fáil's "special relationship" with the construction industry.
Mr Sargent referred to figures released by the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) yesterday showing Fianna Fáil had received €76,500 in donations from 13 companies last year, the vast majority of them construction or property firms.
Mr Sargent asked: "Does this special relationship help to explain your comments at the IMI national management conference last month where you talked up the housing market, even though prices have risen nine times the rate of inflation, even though, since you took power, average household debt has gone from 40 per cent of of disposable income to 130 per cent?
"I am telling you, your comments in Druid's Glen saying the level of growth in debtedness, due to inflated house prices, is not a great problem for hard-pressed people trying to pay mortgages was irresponsible Taoiseach," Mr Sargent added.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern
Mr Ahern told the April conference in Druids Glen, Co Wicklow that he was "always sceptical of the glass half-empty" approach to the property market.
In response to Mr Sargent today, he repeated the assertion that the property market did not pose a problem to the economy.
"The financial stock of the Irish property residential market is €500 billion and the loan book is €100 billion, so I do not see why that should create a shock," Mr Ahern said.
"I said the same in 2003, I said the same in 2004 and I said the same in 2005. Every year I have had to listen to reports that the bottom would go out of the market, we would be building less houses and in fact that isn't the case," he added.
He said the Government had "successfully achieved every year for nine years the creation of more houses... both social and affordable and other houses."
"Somewhere along the line we're going to see supply and demand coming together.
"I do not think we should be getting ourselves into trying to create a crisis in a very important part of the sector of this country."
