The Labour Party has once again called on the government to address the lack of housing in Ireland.

The party's housing spokesperson, Jan O'Sullivan, supported a motion by the Green Party to use the 700 publicly owned sites already identified around the country for social and affordable housing.

Deputy O'Sullivan said: "In our Alternative Budget last year, Labour identified that there are nearly 700 local authority sites and a further 30 plus owned by public bodies available for mixed tenure development, consisting of over 17 hundred hectares.

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"At a density of over 50 units per hectare, this is enough land for 85 thousand homes or more at higher densities.

"If the Government doesn't move quickly, these sites will simply be hived off to the private sector and the homes sold at unaffordable prices.

"With supply such a critical issue, we simply have to start building homes- but homes that people can afford to both rent and buy, for the thousands of people on ordinary incomes that are getting squeezed out of the current market.

"We cannot continue to rely so heavily on the private sector to supply homes, as this is clearly not working."

(CD/LM)