Opposition parties have expressed their concern that the Government will ignore a new report on property which says that local authorities should be given the right to cap the price of building land.
The calls for legislation from the Labour Party, the Greens and Sinn Féin came after an Oireachtas committee said the State should acquire development land for a premium of just 25 per cent over agricultural prices even if the land is zoned for residential use.
The Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution said in a draft report that there was no constitutional impediment to such a measure, which was first mooted in a 1973 report on land by Mr Justice Kenny.
The committee's report, which will be published within weeks, also said that the Government should claw back windfall gains on rezoned land through taxes or development levies.
But the Green Party's environment spokesman, Mr Ciaran Cuffe, expressed scepticism about the prospects of the Government introducing such legislation.
"So far I haven't seen any indication that the Government will act on this report rather than just publish it," said Mr Cuffe, who is a member of the committee.
"The Kenny report on the price of building land back in the early 1970s made some great proposals, but they weren't acted on and we're concerned that exactly the same thing will happen again."
Labour's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said the Government should immediately introduce legislation to cap land prices and end the speculation in building land.
"The Labour Party included some of these recommendations in our submission to the committee," he said.
"We welcome the recommendations of taxes on windfall gains of rezoned land, the regulation of estate agents and auctioneers and the reform of the planning process."
Sinn Féin's environment spokesman, Mr Arthur Morgan, expressed concern that the report would be "waved about" by the Taoiseach during the local and European election campaigns in an attempt to show that the Government was doing something to address the price of housing.
"Without a commitment to implementation all the work of the committee will be worthless," he said.
