Sir, – When Kieran Rose, senior planner with Dublin City Council, protests about new regulations on apartment sizes he shows no sign of taking the beam out of his own eye ("Civil servants must be able to speak out and question public policy", March 12th).
Stand on any eminence from the Dublin mountains to Howth Head and what can you see? The capital city of a first-world nation that is no taller than its trees. Why? Because it has been flattened by the planners, bound and deformed like an ancient Chinese maiden’s tortured foot.
Every commuter, standing all the way home on the train or queuing bumper-to-bumper to Carlow, Drogheda or Wexford can thank Mr Rose’s colleagues for having to live 50 miles from their place of work. They are among the essential sources of the massive disparity in property values here.
Good planning prevents homelessness. Bad planning causes it. It is time to be transparent about that.
– Yours, etc,
ARTHUR DEENY
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.