GROWING numbers of young teachers, gardai, nurses and public servants cannot afford £150,000 starter homes, Labour insisted yesterday.
In a blistering attack on the Government, the party claimed new local authority housing reports due out later this month will show the country is in the grip of an unprecedented housing crisis. Environment spokesman Eamon Gilmore TD called for the establishment of a national housing authority.

He warned that with huge numbers being added to local authority housing lists more and more couples are unable to afford their own homes.
Mr Gilmore revealed the draft housing strategy for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown estimates that up to 60pc of young couples will not be able to buy a home of their own in the area.

He said a national housing authority would assume responsibility for increasing housing supply but the figures showed that many people were going to have to be helped.
A government promise of 25,000 social housing units over the next four years was inadequate and he called for this to be at least doubled.

Mr Gilmore also called for urgent action to tackle speculators in building land and said the local authorities would have to assemble land banks for housing.
The Labour spokesman said the government had failed to accelerate the supply of new homes to meet rising demand and deflate escalating house prices. Only a radical change of direction could now prevent a housing crisis of even greater proportions.

Treacy Hogan Environment Correspondent