The head of the Construction Industry Federation Tom Parlon has said that fixing the housing crisis needs a lot more than just building the required amount of homes.

Mr Parlon is appearing before the Dáil’s special housing and homelessness committee, which has been asked to come up with solutions to the housing crisis in a matter of weeks.

He said the solution did not lie in merely building more housing units.

“We can’t just build without substantial infrastructural investment in the roads, water and new schools,” he said.

“There has been debate about a Minister for Housing. We feel it’s imperative that somebody has overall responsibility.”

Meanwhile, the opening quarter of 2016 saw more than €160m worth of development land sales close across 34 sites in the greater Dublin area, Galway and Cork, according to DTZ Sherry FitzGerald.

The same period in 2015 saw only €92m transacted across 27 sites.

Director DTZ Sherry FitzGerald Donal Kellegher said: “The performance of the market is very encouraging in the opening quarter with over €300 million worth of sales either closed or agreed.

“Furthermore, we have seen a healthy uplift in stock coming to the market, which should help in some way to satisfy the growing appetite for development land. That said, there is still a shortage of well-located sites with optimum planning permission granted.”