Madam, - When my wife and I married, many years ago, we were both on average salaries and bought our first house with a 90 per cent mortgage, arranged under the rule prevailing at the time - that mortgages were arranged on the basis of one salary only.
This rule had the effect of making the purchase of an average, three-bedroomed house a realistic prospect.
Much later, encouraged by the greatly increasing numbers of wives working outside the home, the moneylenders started arranging mortgages on the basis of two salaries, with the inevitable result that, in a very short space of time, the average house price doubled - much to the delight of builders, developers and house agents.
We are now at a stage when families having only one average income have little chance of buying a home of any sort and are faced with the prospect of either being lucky enough to be allocated a home by the local authority or renting in an uncertain and effectively unregulated rental sector.
Time and again, the Central Bank - that toothless old man of Dame Street - and the Financial Regulator dutifully wag warning fingers about mortgage and credit levels, but the moneylenders just laugh and carry on, enjoying the lack of realistic regulatory credit control and EU lending rates more suited to less buoyant economies than ours.
The true social cost of the situation has yet to be counted, but the current alarming housing and credit statistics are the fault primarily of moneylenders, greatly aided by the lack of reasonable Government regulation.
In the next general election, which of the aspirant government parties will grasp the nettle? - Yours, etc,
MARTIN McDONALD,
Liosbourne,
Carrigaline,
Co Cork.