Madam, - The ESRI has calculated that, of the 310,000 houses built in the past four years, 122,000 are now lying idle (Marc Coleman, Business News, March 30th). More surprisingly, we read the comment of the ESRI's Dr Ide Kearney's (one of the principal authors of the latest report) that "we need to find out why people are buying second houses and we don't know. That's key."
Well, I believe even the proverbial dogs on the street know why. It's because of the the ready availability of unbridled credit coupled with an expectation (now generally regarded as grossly unrealistic by most of the dismal scientists) that property price inflation will keep rocketing ahead of general inflation and the cost of borrowing, as it has done so over the relatively short period of the Celtic Tiger.
But it's to reality, with a bang. The not-so-soft landing has begun in earnest and one can expect a considerable "correction", as the economists call it, as panicky divestment decisions are taken. Hang on tight! - Yours, etc,
Dr PAUL BALFE, Ashworth Place, Dublin 6W.