Sir, – My compliments to Cantillon (Business, June 22nd) for succinctly but comprehensively debunking the notion that higher lending might be the key to housing affordability.
Weakening the Central Bank rules, as recently suggested by the head of a major estate agency would, effectively, involve buyers borrowing more to pay higher prices.
Higher household debt can hardly be an appropriate mechanism for promoting construction output.
Given Ireland’s recent traumatic experience, it is astonishing that such an approach could be seriously advocated.
Similarly, house purchase subsidies, discredited in Ireland decades ago and recently with the UK “help to buy” scheme, promote price escalation while benefiting only a few for a short time.
Cantillon identified a rational alternative: reducing housing costs, to which might be added the need to promote increased construction industry capacity. – Yours, etc,
DENIS CONLAN,
Celbridge,
Co Kildare.