The Government would continue to push the proposal that up to 20 per cent of land zoned for residential development would be reserved for social and affordable housing, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Mr Dempsey, said.
The Government would not stand by while housing was priced beyond thousands of people and local authority waiting lists grew, he said.
"In fact, these trends are, in the long run, profoundly damaging to social cohesion and our future economic well-being."
The Minister initiated the debate on the Planning and Development Bill 1999 which, he said, contained many significant changes and consolidated previous Planning Acts.
The most contentious provisions of the Bill were those dealing with housing supply, Mr Dempsey acknowledged.
Average new house prices in Dublin had doubled between 1994 and 1998 to £133,000, and had increased nationally by over 80 per cent to £107,000. On the basis of traditional mortgage lending criteria, the maximum mortgage obtainable by a couple earning £20,000 and £15,000 annually would be £65,000.
The average industrial wage was around £15,000, yet one index of house prices showed the average price paid by first-time buyers nationally as £93,000. This indicated the affordability gap which had developed in recent years.
The effect of price escalation on first-time buyers was also reflected in a reduction in mortgage approvals to such buyers.
It was estimated that in Dublin the figure had fallen from around 60 per cent in 1994 to about 40 per cent in 1998. Newly published figures showed that the number of households needing local authority housing had risen by 43 per cent since 1996 to almost 40,000.
The Government was not shifting its housing responsibilities on to developers, argued Mr Dempsey. The aim was to improve the planning system.