The Labour Party has called on the Government to establish a new housing authority to tackle the problem of spiraling house prices.
The Labour environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore TD, said figures show the average price of a new house in Dublin has trebled during the Government's tenure.
"In 1996 the last year before Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats became the government of this country, the average price of a new house in Dublin was £97,058. Last year (2002) the average price of a new house in Dublin was £297,424.
An increase of 206 per cent, it is nine times the rate of inflation, five times the increase in average earnings and four times the increase in the cost of building houses between 1996 and 2002.
"These massive increases in house prices has resulted in approximately 50 per cent of young working families in Dublin being no longer able to buy a home of their own.
"Some are attempting to meet their housing needs by buying in commuter towns 30 or 40 miles out from Dublin resulting in huge pressures on themselves, their families, and traffic"
There are now 60,000 applicants on local authority housing waiting lists, he said. Some have been waiting for housing for ten years or more.
"In the last partnership Agreement, the Government undertook to provide 25,000 new dwellings. They delivered only just over 13000 local authority dwellings up to the end of 2002, and cut the budget for local authority housing in 2003 by 55 in money terms and 15 per cent in terms of housing output," the Dun Laoghaire TD said.
He called for the establishment of a national Housing Authority to regulate the provision of social and affordable housing and oversee the national land bank for residential development.