Madam, - Like many others I was struck by the Taoiseach's passion at the recent IMI conference on the topic of affordable housing - and in particular his expressed commitment to tackle the cost of building land even if that means changing the Constitution.
I have just been to Perth, Western Australia, where the median house price reached $198,000 (Aus.) last year. This means that 50 per cent of houses bought last year cost less than €112,000. For a little more than €112,000 you can get a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house, brick built, with all "mod cons", including a pool. Such properties are available in lovely, accessible suburbs with landscaped estates, shopping malls, aquatic centres. and wonderfully equipped schools.
The root cause of exorbitant house prices is not just the price of land, as suggested by the Taoiseach. In Perth you can have a good house built for as low as €25 per square foot and an excellent finish for €50. Two years ago I was quoted £120 per square foot for a "decent finish". That's probably close to €180 today - more than five times the cost in Perth. Building materials - bricks, cement, 4 x 2 planks - are commodities.
I have asked two independent property experts what on earth can explain such huge differences. Between them they mentioned five causes:
1. Government tax on every item of materials and every transaction.
2. The control exercised by CRH and a few other suppliers over the price of materials.
3. The constitutional protection for land owners (mentioned by the Taoiseach).
4. The percentage-based fees of solicitors and other professionals.
5. The improper, often corrupt relationship between the political system and builders/developers.
This week I chatted with a hotel worker whom I have known for about six years. He told me: "Me and my partner have saved €90,000 but we still can't buy a house." Imagine how hard they must have worked and the sacrifices they must have made to save that sum. Property sections of the newspapers reveal what's on offer to him at the bottom of the property ladder, for example a "starter home" in Crumlin for €250,000 or a two-bedroomed cottage in North Strand for €190,000. He cannot get a €100,000 mortgage.
There is something fundamentally wrong with the whole structure of the housing market. It will not be solved by €3,000 first-time buyer grants. There is no national housing strategy.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that what we have had in Ireland for the past 40 years amounts to a conspiracy that has left tens of thousands of people effectively homeless and is enslaving generations of Irish people to crippling mortgages and to lives that will be blighted and shortened by the stresses of commuting from poorly serviced housing estates.
The housing crisis will be the Achilles heel of our economic prosperity. I hope the Taoiseach is really serious about tackling all of its root causes. - Yours, etc.,
EDMOND MOLLOY, (Ex-chairman, Focus Ireland), Zion Road, Dublin 6.