Madam, - Ken Keller (March 14th) drew attention to the outlandish cost of housing. To start with, one reason for the senselessly high prices can be adduced from a report in your edition of March 16th which described how two well-known Dublin property developers fought it out to buy an antique turf bucket at Adam's which sold for €145,000. Developers make such vast profits that they have money to burn.
The core costs of building houses and apartments should be coming down thanks to modern building materials, techniques and aids. Apartment blocks can now be put together like Lego on a production-line basis. Expensive craftsmanship is no longer required for the normal working unit that can be assembled mostly by relatively unskilled labour. Into the bargain the average apartment block is extremely basic and a travesty compared with their counterparts abroad. The market portrays "apartments" as if they were on Fifth Avenue and not places so small that one has to park one's bike on the balcony (leaving little room there for anything else).
This year, over 70,000 "units" were constructed. Developers and builders have walked away with clear profits in the order of several billions. The dogs in the streets know this, but is anything being done about this principal factor in the mindless cost of housing? Housing should be treated for what it is - a necessity of life, just like milk and bread, and its price rigorously controlled. The term "affordable housing" is ironic. It implies that all other housing is "non-affordable". All housing should be affordable. That is, one's primary home should not require two people to work night and day to repay lenders - who are also making enormous profits.
Many of the problems that beset the quality of life in this country would be minimised if people buy sensibly priced housing with properly planned and readily available facilities. It is not rocket science, but it does need somebody in authority to put some rockets in the right places. Can anything be done about this scandal? - Yours, etc.,
TED O'KEEFFE, Sandford Road, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.