The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has blamed labour shortages in the construction industry for undermining Government plans to expand its social housing stock.
Speaking at the publication of the National Economic and Social Forum report on the housing crisis, he said the Government had committed £800 million this year to housing, including social and affordable homes.
However, he said, the industry was already at full capacity and was unable to build units quickly enough. "It is not a financial issue. It is the capacity - that we can turn out, not just housing but quality housing."
He said: "The industry presently finds it almost impossible to build any more than there are . . . Much of the industry is working six days already. No unemployment in the industry, and then how do you build more on that? That is the capacity problem."
Mr Ahern said he was meeting representatives of the Construction Industry Federation last night to discuss the issue, stressing that "we have to continue to maximise as much as we possibly can".
A record 46,500 houses were built last year, and this year's total was due to top 50,000, he said. "People told me I would not get it over 40 [thousand] just a few years ago."
He said he fully backed the emphasis in the report on meeting the needs of the most vulnerable in society, particularly those on waiting lists, those in poor-quality accommodation and those with special housing requirements.
"The absence of plans to expand housing supply that we faced has had a very serious effect . . . and ongoing impact on the most vulnerable people on lower incomes," said the Taoiseach. As a result, the Government had developed a housing plan "based not on opinion or speculation but on compromise and positive expert analysis".
However, the NESF's chairwoman, Ms Maureen Gaffney, criticised the three Bacon reports on the housing sector, which had formed the basis of Government policy, for marginalising social and affordable housing. She said the reports had concentrated on the private sector but "whatever about not being able to buy in a suburb of your choice it's another thing not being able to buy in any other area".
Introducing the report, Ms Gaffney said the needs of 55,000 families would be met in the period of the partnership agreement. But this was only "the tip of the iceberg". "we are still standing still when we should be running," she said.
Any Government which took up the initiative on housing would be remembered not just by this generation but by generations to come, she said.
Welcoming the report, the Conference of Religious of Ireland's justice commission said it strongly supported the establishment of a housing authority.
"A major, and justified, criticism of Government policy to date is that it has failed to address housing as a system consisting of a number of interrelated tenures," said the commission in a statement. "The sectoral nature of the terms of reference of recent studies has led to policy fragmentation and sets of recommendations for one sector that have potential negative implications for other housing tenures."
The commission added that the failure to tackle the current crisis, particularly in the social housing area, was deepening the divisions in Irish society.
Mr Ciaran Ryan, director of the Irish Home Builders' Association, said he agreed with the overall thrust of the report, particularly the need for expanding affordable housing. However, on the issue of increasing the availability of land, he stressed that the focus should not be solely on private landowners as local authorities had significant land banks of their own.
The Civil & Public Service Union urged the Government to implement immediately the findings of the report, saying there was no evidence that the housing crisis was under control but, rather, it could be getting worse.
"Despite three Bacon reports there is no sign of the housing crisis abating, and more radical measures still are needed," a CPSU statement said.
The Disability Federation of Ireland also strongly supported the report's main recommendations, describing the document as "a watershed".
Fine Gael's spokesman on housing, Mr Billy Timmins TD, said it provided a clear indication that the Government had failed in the area of housing. "The present Government does not have the political will to tackle the problem and it is content to let house prices rise and rise and become out of reach of most young couples and first-time buyers," he said.
