Sir, – The consistent attacks on the Central Bank rules on mortgage limits are both tiresome and worrying ("O'Flynn says 'housing crisis' is Central Bank's fault'", February 4th).
They are tiresome because they repeat an entirely mistaken approach to the housing crisis, one that avoids persistent structural problems involving supply and planning and instead recommends that people take on more debt.
They are worrying because our politicians are addicted to utterly absurd schemes whereby house prices and rents stay high but taxpayers’ money is transferred to developers and landlords.
The recent “affordable rental” pilot scheme for young workers in Dublin announced by the outgoing government is an obvious case in point. Property developers and all those working in the property industry want higher house prices; they are not neutral observers.
The Central Bank rules surely stand as one of the few properly sensible interventions that a State institution has made in housing matters in the last decade. It would be a travesty if pressure from the usual vested interests and the perennially short-sighted reactions of our politicians successfully overturn rules that are clearly in the citizens’ best interests. – Yours, etc,
BILL CALLAGHAN,
Clontarf,
Dublin 3.