The number of homes built last year was a record despite industry warnings that construction was slowing down, the Minister of State for the environment, Mr Bobby Molloy, declared.
Last year, 52,602 houses and apartments were built - a 5.6 per cent increase on the record set in 2000 - while 212,000 have been built since Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats entered office.
"We are building houses at a rate of over 13 per cent per 1,000 population, which is by far the highest rate of house-building in Europe," he told the conference.
"Sure the Celtic Tiger brought a huge increase in the need to house the 400,000 extra people employed in the country. We will be judged on how we responded to the challenge. The record speaks for itself," he said.
Mr Peter Brennan, a leading IBEC figure and the managing director of A&L Goodbody consultants, warned of the infrastructural challenges that lie ahead. In Dublin, land equivalent "to six Phoenix Parks" would have to be found to cope with housing needs by 2006, while road spending would have to be increased to deal with the two million cars expected on the roads by 2016.
