Madam, - As a farmer, I agree with Mr Tom Parlon when he says the State should not be allowed to interfere in the value of land owned by private citizens (The Irish Times, August 18th).
Land is the capital and the lifeblood of every farm in this country and farmers do as much as any group to maintain our land heritage. Why should a farmer whose family has worked the land for generations be forced to accept a cap on the value on his or her property and surrender the value to someone else?
It was fitting that Tom Parlon gave his views at the Parnell Summer School. Charles Stewart Parnell and the leaders of the Land League fought so that tenant farmers could have the right to own their own property. It would be a slight on their memory if the Government decided to interfere in the private property of Irish citizens. - Yours, etc.,
P.J. LONG, Jamestown, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
Madam, - I know it was hot last weekend in Wicklow but that still doesn't explain the absurdity of Tom Parlon's speech at the Parnell Summer School.
Before comparing proposals to reduce property prices to the ideology of Joseph Stalin, he should acquaint himself firstly with the proposals and secondly with Stalin.
There is no reason why the State should not purchase land compulsorily for building in the same way it purchases land for building roads. In the case of roads, the interference with property rights is justified by the public need for a good national transport system. Since housing is more of a public necessity than transport, it makes sense for the State to attempt to solve the spiralling cost of housing by purchasing land compulsorily from developers who are sitting on vast land banks.
Rather than being an encroachment on private property rights, such a proposal is consistent with Article 43 of the Constitution which expressly states that the right to private property is "to be regulated by the principles of social justice" and to be reconciled "with the exigencies of the common good".
Stalin had a different method of implementing his ideology - to which the ghosts of (at least) 10 million Soviet citizens can testify. - Yours, etc.,
JIM O'CALLAGHAN, (Fianna Fáil Candidate, Rathmines Ward),
Dublin 6.
Madam - I note that the Progressive Democrats Minister and former IFA president Tom Parlon believes that capping land prices "would be a jump back to the dark days of the 19th century". He could not have said a truer word.
Without price caps being imposed by successive British governments on the estates of Anglo-Irish landlords, this country's tenant farmers would never have been able to afford their own homesteads. Now the wealthy remnants of that group want to kick the first rung on the property ladder away from today's young urban tenants. - Yours, etc.,
PADRAIG YEATES, Balkill Road, Howth, Dublin 13.