The chairman of the Housing Agency has said €34bn needs to be spent over the next 35 years on developing the region surrounding Dublin.

Dr Conor Skehan said future projects in Dublin must be undertaken with a “think big” attitude.

The ideas will be discussed an event later where the future of Dublin up to 2050 will be discussed.

Dr Skehan said current plans for Dublin city and its surrounds were not ambitious enough.

“We’re going to continue to grow and deal with problems as they arise, and that means we’ll just do things like add another lane or a few more junctions to the M50 and probably in 10 years time, build another M50 10 kms outside of that,” he said.

“That’s not going to be the way we make this place work. We’ve got to have big, bold visions. We’ve to spend a lot of money every year for the next 35 years getting ready for that much bigger city.”