The Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Bobby Molloy, has rejected Opposition claims that there is a housing crisis.

Amid charges that less than 10 per cent of housing applicants have been accommodated, Mr Molloy said he did not deny there were problems in the housing area but said the Government had taken a range of actions since his appointment and a record number of new houses and apartments had been built.

However, Mr Eamon Gilmore (Lab, Dun Laoghaire) said the Minister was presiding over the worst provision of housing in living memory. Some 10,250 families would be housed in 1999, Mr Molloy said, adding that the local authority housing programme for 1999 was being expanded to its highest level since 1986 with a capital provision of £230 million - an increase of £35 million or 18 per cent on the 1998 provision.

Mr Gilmore questioned the Minister's reluctance to declare a housing crisis. House prices had risen by more than 60 per cent since he took office and more than 20,000 additional applicants had gone on the council waiting list.

There had been a 50 per cent increase in private rents and a 500 per cent increase in the number of tenants evicted from private rented accommodation. "If that is not a crisis how much worse does it have to get before he considers it to be one?"

Mr Alan Dukes (FG, Kildare South) said there were 40,000 people waiting for housing in rented accommodation in local authorities. The Minister had said 3,700 new units would be available for renting by local authorities so less than one in 10 applicants would get a house to rent.

"The Minister has been trying to tell us that he's doing the devil and all about housing. He's meeting less than one-tenth of that problem," Mr Dukes said.