Madam, – Ireland has over 43,000 too many houses; there has been speculation about pulling them down. England has 300,000 too few houses, and no cash whatsoever to build any new ones.
However, England pays housing benefit, guaranteed for life, at £65 per person per week, or £300 a month. On average, each house in Ireland could accommodate three people. Three times £300 gives £900 a month – close to €1,000 a month. This is more than enough to rent a house in Ireland.
If Irish landlords were offered €1,000 a month, guaranteed by UK plc, one presumes they would be jolly happy, as they are receiving nothing at present, bar bills for houses they can’t sell or rent. English tenants might also be jolly happy, as rental housing in England is horrible, scarce and too expensive.
If a mechanism could match both needs, everybody would win, especially young families, if prepared to move to a more hopeful place. Ireland is lovely – a great place to bring up children, especially in the rural and coastal areas. They might need a moving grant, but it would generate business for removal companies.
If English councils were allowed to pay rent for Irish houses, via some intergovernment scheme, and these English tenants were allowed to continue to draw all their other normal benefits from England (such as jobseeker’s benefit, pension, etc) they would not be a drain on the Irish economy. In fact they would contribute substantially to it, as they would be shopping for food and clothes, travelling to and fro, and, eventually, when the economy picks up and these motivated young people get jobs or start businesses, contributing to the Irish tax base.
As a trained architect, and rock and roll concert layout designer who has been staying in Ireland for the past three months, it seems to me that Ireland needs new blood, and England fewer people. I am sorry to say that this proposal should make the Tories happy – I am not one of them. But I think this is a rarity: a win-win situation and I say, let it be.
– Yours, etc,