Sir, – In his recent piece “Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael decided to reshape Ireland as a nation beholden to private property owners” (Books, October 1st), Fintan O’Toole cites Vienna as a positive example, with 50 per cent of its housing being public. This means someone with an income that is average or above may well qualify for public housing, and availing of this definitely does not bear a social stigma.
How did the citizens of “Red Vienna” get here? To fund a gigantic project of building 60,000 homes, a century ago Hugo Breitner introduced an intricate system to tax activities related to a “luxury lifestyle”, as well as a highly progressive property tax. This left the average working class homeowner mostly untouched while making lavish villas and holiday homes comparatively more expensive to own.
It was not long ago that we heard from the Irish Commission on Taxation and Welfare that “the share of taxation from property and wealth is low and should increase”. Following this, Leo Varadkar tried to dismiss the report as being “straight out of Sinn Féin’s manifesto”.
In the light of current trends in opinion polls, one can only hope that this is true. – Yours, etc,
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Dr MÁRTON DELI,
Melbourne,
Australia.