Sir, – The data and analysis Fintan O’Toole offers on long-term trends in home ownership are insightful (“The shift back towards landlordism didn’t happen by accident”, Opinion & Analysis, July 12th).
In combination with his observations that no party seeking election ever promised “to bring back the landlords” and yet the option to buy has steadily moved beyond most young people, he characterises much of the generational frustration of the current era.
However, I think he stops short of articulating the major obstacle to seriously addressing the matter. This is the fact that, despite what they say and probably even believe, most voters don’t want the problem fixed.
Concerns about “affordable housing” are widely, almost constantly, aired. Everyone using the term knows that this is a thin euphemism for “cheaper”, preventing us from saying, perhaps even thinking, that word. It is extraordinary that no one seeking election talks about orchestrating dramatic falls in house prices. Or, more accurately, it would be extraordinary if the last government to do so hadn’t incurred a commensurate collapse in public support from which they may never recover.
We expect our politicians to be consistent in their views over time and for their actions to reconcile with their manifestos. But it seems perfectly normal for the millions of homeowners of the country to, like St Augustine on chastity, fervently hope to see home ownership made possible for all, while wishing their own home to steadily appreciate in value. Unless political leadership is willing to take a consistent position on this discrepancy between what people say they want, and actually want, there will remain a lack intellectual honestly between the electorate and those seeking election. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN O’BRIEN,
Kinsale,
Co Cork.
Sir, – In her opinion piece “We are losing teachers who cannot afford to live here” (July 11th), Una Mullally writes that “everyone with ideas tethered to reality knows the solutions” to the problems of affordability in the residential rental market. This elegant manoeuvre saves her the trouble of telling us what she thinks the solutions are.
The only hint of a solution in her piece is that we might cut and freeze rents to affordable levels. I’m amazed that the world’s central bankers and finance ministers haven’t in the same vein found the solution to inflation which is hiding in plain sight. Let’s just cut prices.
Una Mullally makes two points which are, I think, worthy of serious attention. The first is that young teachers and other public servants cannot afford to live in Dublin. We’ll pass on decentralisation as a possible partial solution – we’ll always need teachers in Dublin, and, in any event, that bird has flown. But pending the introduction of solutions on the supply side which, it seems, everyone knows about, should we not do something on the demand side?
A teacher or a garda who has to live in Dublin faces far higher living costs than her compatriots in Drumshanbo. Should salaries not reflect that? Unions which have just concluded a campaign to eliminate a two-tier pay structure, which they were complicit in introducing, may baulk at the suggestion but it would appear to have some merit.
She also writes that Ireland “is an insanely expensive country without any of the indications in services, infrastructure, amenities and quality housing that tend to go along with living in an expensive place”. She concludes, echoing Galbraith’s “private opulence and public squalor”, that we are rich on paper but impoverished in reality.
I agree. The services which she lists are or should be provided by the State or by local authorities. There really should be some accountability for the contradiction that we pay enough in taxes to have world-class public services but that, with some notable exceptions, we don’t get what we pay for. – Yours, etc,
PAT O’BRIEN,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Rent levels for most tenants in Ireland are remarkably stable. The Daft.ie rent report headlines with an 11.7 per cent inflation rate but this rate actually applies to only a tiny percentage of the private rental market – those available to rent at a point in time. The main statistics in the Daft report are based only on properties advertised on Daft.ie for a given period, ie properties with no sitting tenant and available for rent, supply of which is dominated by the large investment funds. Rents for most sitting tenants actually show minimal inflation year over year. The average rate of inflation for sitting tenants over the past year was 2 per cent. A deeper reading of the Daft report makes this point clear. Thankfully Daft.ie reports are now starting to highlight the difference in rents between sitting tents (over 99 per cent of the market) and available rental properties. On May 1st this year, there were just 851 homes available to rent nationwide. Sinn Féin, other left-wing parties and academic social policy commentators have had years of media commentary and large amounts of airtime on the subject of rents, with new rents and sitting rents being confused and conflated, leading to mass misery on this subject. The reality is that rents are very stable for the vast majority of tenants – over 300,000 of them. – Yours, etc,
MARK MOHAN,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.