Government Ministers have been accused of "talking rubbish about the delivery of more affordable housing while doing nothing to promote more innovative ways of building houses".
Gerry McCaughey, managing director of Century Homes, Ireland's leading timber-frame house manufacturer, was speaking yesterday at the launch near London of a traditional-looking three-bedroom house that can be built for just £60,000 (€90,000).
The timber-framed house, clad in mortarless brick tiles made in Co Tyrone, has a livingroom and kitchen on the ground floor and three bedrooms upstairs, including a large master bedroom with an en-suite bathroom which has its own window.
Standing on pre-cast concrete foundations, the house can be built in just three weeks and has just been presented with an "Eco-Home" award by British deputy prime minister John Prescott in recognition of its high insulation standard.
Conventional houses built with concrete blocks and brick take an average of four months to finish. Labour costs, as well as exorbitant site costs and profiteering by developers, are among the factors making houses in Ireland more expensive.
The £60,000 house was produced by Century Homes in response to Mr Prescott's call to the building industry to provide well-designed, environmentally sustainable starter homes at prices lower-income earners could afford to pay.
One of its selling points for purchasers is energy efficiency; because the house is so well-insulated, it would only cost £160 (€240) to heat a year.
This, in turn, would make a contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the housing sector.
It is among several affordable homes on view at Offsite 2005, a major exhibition organised by Britain's Building Research Establishment (BRE) to demonstrate the use of modern methods of pre-fabricated construction in delivering new housing.
BRE's Peter Bonfeld said Mr Prescott's drive to create "sustainable communities" included a requirement that innovative building methods - such as timber or steel-framed construction - must be used for at least 25 per cent of new homes.
Mr McCaughey said Century had "proved" that an affordable family home could be produced for £60,000 - though this figure obviously excludes the site cost, development levies and VAT at 10.5 per cent (in Britain, new houses are zero-rated).
Though he praised the British government's "impressive track record" in embracing new forms of construction, Mr McCaughey complained that the Irish Government was still "contemptuous of any building method other than concrete".
A report on timber-framed housing - now commonplace throughout the world - had "quite ridiculously" called for pilot programmes for social housing in Ireland and, 18 months later, "none of its recommendations have been implemented".
