The sharp fall in the number of new apartments coming on the market in Dublin city during the past year has been blamed by a leading estate agent on "the hostile planning environment" created by both the local authority planners and An Bord Pleanala.

Ken MacDonald, of agents Hooke & MacDonald, which has sold the vast majority of new apartments in the city over the past 15 years, says there is a creeping paralysis in residential development activity in the city centre which is caused by a hostile planning environment, irrespective of the design quality and "fostered by official complicity up to the highest levels, with some honourable exceptions." He said this was depressing supply and forcing up prices and rents. He predicted that it would inevitably hinder inward commercial and technological investments in the Dublin region.

Mr MacDonald's comments come after a year in which the number of new city centre apartments going for sale fell by about 40 per cent, from 1,650 in 1998 to 1,200 this year. In 1997, 2,200 apartments were completed and in 1996, the figure was 2,700. In recent months, three high-profile innercity apartment schemes with almost 1,000 units were blocked by An Bord Pleanala: Zoe Development's 650-apartment scheme at Barrow Street; Cosgrave's 220-unit development at George's Quay; and Morrison's 114 apartments opposite the Point Depot, on Thorncastle Street. Mr MacDonald predicted that the number of residential units to be built in the city will continue to dwindle when compared to the mid-1990s. Prices and rents will consequently rise by around 20 per cent next year, he said.

With the population of the greater Dublin area due to increase to two million over the next 15 years, Mr MacDonald said the inertia in relation to planning, housing, infrastructure and transport does not provide confidence that there are any radical plans to deal with the huge strains that this is going to place on the capital.

He suggested a 15-year plan that encompasses an underground rail system for the city, emergency planning measures, including the replacement of An Bord Pleanala with a fasttrack system, and pro-housing initiatives in the sale and rental sectors.