Sir, – Fintan O'Toole identifies the conspicuously absent voice in housing policy over the last 250 years (July 24th).
By referring to the brave world of the young State in making places that ordinary people could call home, he focuses a bright light on the failure of recent Government policy which has been driven by the property industry.
These policies only serve developers in the pursuit of profit. What they produce is housing so over-developed that it is among the most expensive in the world, beyond the reach of renters or purchasers.
With seven more months to go before the last undemocratic Strategic Housing Development (SHD) over-development is lodged to An Bord Pleanála for approval, there is ample scope for more profit-taking by investors, without any hope that the interests of ordinary Irish people might come first.
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Combined with the autocratic ministerial directives on height and reduced apartment standards, we will have the worst possible results – unaffordable housing that will destroy the quality of our cities, towns and villages.
This madness must stop so that we can put the citizens’ needs first and deliver the housing that fits those needs.
– Yours, etc,
ROBIN MANDAL,
Dublin Democratic
Planning Alliance,
Dublin 6.
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