Affordable housing must be a central component of any agreement to succeed Partnership 2000, the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Peter Cassells, warned yesterday.
He was responding to the announcement on Thursday by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, that builders would be able to negotiate with local authorities on the 20 per cent element of affordable housing required in new developments.
Mr Cassels said Government representatives had been told bluntly at yesterday's talks on a successor to Partnership 2000 that such a "U-turn would send a very powerful signal that badly needed reforms in the supply of land for affordable and social housing could be sabotaged by powerful vested interests.
"These vested interests - builders, land speculators and estate agents - have already contributed through their excessive profit margins to the exorbitant prices that home seekers have to pay for a house.
"The requirement in the Bill that developers sell to local authorities, at agricultural prices, up to 20 per cent of every site for social and affordable housing must be retained.
"The only dissenting voice was from those interests who are benefitting from the shortage."
While the general public supported the Government's initiatives these "vested interests lobbied and cajoled behind close doors to block them. They must not be allowed to succeed."