Sir, – Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says “There needs to be at least 40,000 homes built every year and we are ramping up to that under the Housing for All plan” (“Varadkar reveals deficit of 250,000 homes in State, admitting crisis will take time to solve”, News, March 8th).
On display in my local library at present are three draft local area plans 2023 to 2029 for the municipal districts of Tralee, Killarney and Listowel. They state that they must be consistent with the Kerry County Development Plan 2022-2028, the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy for the Southern Region and the National Planning Framework.
There is not in these three local area plans a single mention of immigration or refugees and their impact on housing targets in the county. Instead they state that just 7,000 new houses are required in the whole of Co Kerry by 2028 based on a projected population increase of 9,363 by that period.
That’s less than 1,200 new builds per year.
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Breaking this down further, it says 160 new houses are required in Ballybunion by 2028, omitting the fact that there are over 200 Ukrainian refugees being accommodated in the town at the moment.
It’s even worse for Killarney, stating that only 1,277 houses will be required by 2028 when there are over 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers staying in the town.
If what is in the Kerry County Development Plan is replicated in other local authorities around the country then our system of local government is not just broken but it is completely out of date for failing to take into account the circa 100,000 immigrants that have arrived in this country over the last 12 months and their impact on housing requirements.
Submissions for the local area plans above close on March 10th. Council members will then vote to approve or reject the plans following the chief executive’s report and assuming that there are no “material alterations” to contend with.
Perhaps the Taoiseach might therefore tell us how he is going to ramp up to getting 250,000 new houses built in the country if local authorities can’t even plan properly within their own boundaries? – Is mise,
TOM McELLIGOTT,
Listowel,
Co Kerry.
Sir, – I have been renting two homes to the same two families for a number of years; they are reliable and responsible tenants, and in receipt of Housing Assistance Payment support.
My reasons for wanting to sell now are similar to those reported widely in the media, but with the added concern that a new, left-leaning government will make it far more difficult for landlords going forward.
However, I have no intention of evicting these families in the present circumstances, so I contacted the local authorities in both areas, and numerous approved housing bodies, with a view to buying the homes with the tenants in situ. I have received only two replies, with both refusing to engage, and no response at all from the others.
This solution seems like a small but easy win in the struggle to provide homes, and would deliver good-quality, long-term public housing stock, so why is this not happening on a large scale? Why are responsible landlords being ignored? – Yours, etc,
GAVIN COFFEY,
Artane,
Dublin 5.
Sir, – The ending of the eviction moratorium has the unintended consequence of concentrating the best part of a year’s evictions into a few weeks, which is a catastrophic strain on an already terrible situation.
It is incomprehensible that the Government did not see this coming. The housing crisis has been predictably getting worse for all the years of this Government and the previous “version”.
We need an immediate, full-scale social housing programme and, in tandem, a full reform of tenancy laws, to align the rights of long term residents to European norms: where both fixed-period and indefinite tenancy agreements generally have a much stronger balance of protections for tenants. – Yours, etc,
TOM CONROY,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – When is this canard of the “problem” of landlords disappearing from the market going to be exposed?
Landlords may disappear from the market but their properties do not. They are either bought by other landlords or people buying a new home. The stock of houses remains unchanged.
Indeed, the number of properties left to rent should also remain unchanged as the new home owners vacate their properties.
The only way houses can “disappear” from the market is if they are left vacant. This would happen where the landlords have expectations of a higher price/rent in the future, ie they are betting that Government housing policy will continue to fail!
Is there any evidence that this is happening to any great extent? Such behaviour, where the market is near its peak, seems unlikely.
If it is happening, surely there is one simple answer – a tax on vacant usable properties, not a reward such as the income tax or capital gains tax cuts which are being currently mooted.
There is no moral equivalence in a housing crisis between a landlord being deprived of the cream on the cake in an inflated market and a tenant being left homeless. – Yours, etc,
MARK O’HANLON,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.
Sir, – Twenty years ago when I bought my house, some suggested that I should also buy a couple of rental properties for my pension. Bragging about their own rock-solid investments, they shook their heads in bewilderment as I declined a sure thing.
Twenty years later, it was one of the best decisions of my life. In the current hostile climate, you couldn’t pay me enough to be a landlord. Imagine the fear of having just one bad tenant who could destroy your life’s savings. The stress alone would be enough to shorten one’s life.
In those 20 years, landlords have seen negative equity, loss of tax reliefs, rising interest rates and costs, limits on rent increases, an uncaring Residential Tenancies Board, and the eviction ban among the many disincentives to providing a roof over people’s heads. And all this by successive governments dominated by centre-right, pro-market political parties.
Imagine what left-wing governments would have done?
Bad enough as it is to be a landlord under the current Governments, it will not get any better.
Any tax package it provides can and will be easily reversed by the next hard-left government, which will delight in shafting and screwing landlords as much as possible.
The ending of the eviction ban is the very last chance landlords will have of exiting the housing market, as under the next hard-left government evictions and rent rises will be permanently banned.
My advice to all landlords is that if you don’t have “for sale” signs outside your rental properties on April 1st, the April Fool is you! – Yours, etc,
JASON FITZHARRIS,
Swords,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Sleeping on a park bench will certainly add to the numbers who must get up early in the morning. – Yours, etc,
CIARAN WALSH,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.