Sir, – Before the Government’s new housing plan was even launched, all parties of the left loudly condemned it, with some proclaiming their ongoing demand for an eviction ban and a rent freeze for the rental market.
In reality, the housing sector could expect a considerable shock from an alternative leftist government in Ireland.
Overburdensome regulations, high taxation and ritual anti-landlord sentiment have already seriously damaged the rental sector and the housing market. Rent caps introduced in Ireland have been a self-inflicted disaster – the private rental sector has suffered a complete collapse in investment and now the current Government is desperately seeking to reverse this brutal reality.
Landlords have lost significant control over their properties in an ever-changing regulatory environment, but the left is seldom satisfied no matter how draconian the regulations are on property owners.
RM Block
Economist Assar Lindbeck demonstrated the destructive nature of excessive regulation on rental markets and ample evidence exists from throughout the world that rent freezing, eviction bans and other excessive regulations will reduce housing supply, thereby driving up long-term price pressures and homelessness.
This easily understood point is now indisputably proven in Ireland where the volume of landlord exits has grown to frenzied proportions. In late 2016, in response to populist pressure and lobbying, rent controls were introduced here.
At the time the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) said there were 319,822 private rented tenancies. The RTB says approximately 241,000 private rental tenancies now remain, a loss of nearly 79,000 tenancies while our population increases significantly.
Sinn Féin and other leftist parties would freeze rents and ban evictions. Who would invest in the rental sector when revenue is frozen, but costs are not?
In Germany, for example, Berlin’s rent-fixing policy caused a dramatic fall-off in properties available to rent and a mass exodus of landlords, similar to what has happened here in Ireland. Think about what an outright rent freeze and eviction ban would do.
Further, Sinn Féin’s housing plan says it can deliver 35,000 new private rental tenancies within an overall delivery of 175,000 private homes over the life of its plan.
At the same time, Sinn Féin would impose a rent freeze, ban evictions, scrap the landlord tax credit, introduce new taxes on the ownership of rental properties and increase stamp duty “to end the bulk purchase of residential property by institutional investors”. The logic of this is mystifying.
The taxpayer and severe regulations will not resolve Ireland’s housing supply issues. The private sector is the key to unlocking mass housing supply with around ¤15 billion of private sector investment likely required each year to build the homes we need. – Yours, etc,
MARK MOHAN,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.
Sir, – In light of the launch of the Government’s new housing policy. May I be so bold to ask. Does anyone believe it will happen? – Yours, etc,
PAUL DORAN,
Clondalkin,
Dublin 22.
Sir, – No annual housing figures are to be announced in the Government’s relaunched building programme.
Instead, 300,000 units – to be delivered by 2030 – is the new target. In the meantime we will be left guessing until the “big reveal” in five years’ time?
Targets should be announced weekly if we’re to have any confidence in this highly aspirational plan. – Yours, etc,
RORY E MacFLYNN,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Denis O’Brien and graduates
Sir, – Denis O Brien says graduates are behaving as if “entitled” and that they dictate to employers.
Are these graduates the same people who keep companies in profit and who create opulent lifestyles for their begrudging employers?
In Ireland, as in most capitalist societies, successful business people are often given a substantial “bunk” upwards in life by having historic familial connections and by availing of an expensive, exclusive educational system which places them on the inside track of opportunity. – Yours, etc,
EUGENE TANNAM,
Firhouse,
Dublin 24.
Voluntary hospitals
Sir, – Chris Fitzpatrick (Letters, November 11th) draws an interesting comparison between the voluntary hospitals and the medieval Italian city states.
About the only positive attribute he associates with the voluntary hospitals is that they are centres of excellence and learning.
Perhaps I could draw his attention to the Report of the Independent Review Group, chaired by Catherine Day, where he could find a deeper appreciation of what the voluntary sector brings to the health services.
The review group was established by then minister for health Simon Harris to examine the role of the voluntary organisations in publicly funded health services and personal social services. The group found the voluntary sector brought added value to health and social care in leadership, innovation, flexibility, responsiveness and local community involvement.
This ability of the voluntary sector to respond rapidly was demonstrated during the Covid pandemic.
The then CEO of the Health Service Executive, Paul Reid, and the National Economic and Social Council (2021) praised the voluntary sector for its ability to take quick decisions, to innovate, to be flexible and to adapt swiftly as circumstances changed.
The review group drew attention to the scale of the contribution of the voluntary sector, with voluntary hospitals providing about a quarter of all hospital care and about two-thirds of care for people with disabilities.
The group found that the current mix of public, voluntary and private healthcare providers is not unique to Ireland and is to be found in other European countries and in North America. The group described the relationship between the voluntary sector and the State as “fractured”, with a breakdown in mutual trust and respect.
It recommended a different funding model and public recognition in a charter of the separate legal status and of the role of the voluntary sector in providing a public service.
Unfortunately, those recommendations have not been acted upon and the relationship has deteriorated further.
The integrated financial management system referred to by John McManus in his Opinion piece (“Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has taken on the hospital boards. There can only be one winner,” November 7th) and which the Minister for Health and the HSE are demanding that all voluntary hospitals adopt, regardless of their legal status, is another step in limiting the autonomy of voluntary hospitals.
This new system is not about financial reporting or accountability for public funds, all of which is done openly and transparently at present.
The issue, as I understand it, is about controlling financial decisions within the funding envelope negotiated with the HSE.
Some voluntary hospitals are companies under the Companies Act and, with a business background, John McManus knows that directors are responsible for the financial decisions of their companies. That it is not a responsibility that they can transfer to another body.
Martin Wall reported (November 3rd) that the HSE undertook in 2022 to provide a legal framework around the introduction of the new financial system.
For reasons that are not clear, the HSE has since resiled from this agreement. The Day Report provides a framework for resolving these differences between statutory funders and the voluntary sector, both of which have a common purpose – to provide the best possible healthcare for the public in the most effective and efficient way.
The report’s recommendations should be implemented. – Yours, etc,
RUTH BARRINGTON,
Clontarf,
Dublin.
Plugging our defences
Sir, – I doubt if I’ve ever agreed so readily with Michael McDowell, and I may never agree so readily with him again(“How many Irish women and men could rally to the flag and handle an automatic weapon?” November 12th).
He is absolutely correct about our Defence Forces. Successive governments’ treatment of the Army, Air Corp and Naval Service has been appalling.
It is obvious that our military numbers and equipment are not sufficient to maintain our independence in a conflict of any size or duration. And this is not the fault of any past or present serving members of the Defence Forces. It is the fault of our politicians.
Their approach to defence also makes a mockery of our supposed neutrality. It is a measure of the hypocritical nature of that neutrality that we have allowed our own defence capacity to decline and at the same time are content to allow other militaries cover our defence needs.
We should be embarrassed, while claiming to be neutral, to depend on the Royal Air Force or any other air force to secure our air space. Such a dependency clearly aligns us with a particular military grouping, which is far from being neutral.
If we were neutral we would develop our own military capacity until it is adequate enough to make any aggressor wary of attacking us. Of course, we can’t develop such capacity by ourselves alone.
As with any other western European country, we need to openly ally with others to ensure that collective defence supports our political independence and gives our military a purpose that encourages recruitment and also provides access to the equipment we need so that those recruits can do their jobs. It’s the least that our current military personnel deserve. – Yours, etc,
GREG CROWLEY,
Galway.
Prisons and overcrowding
Sir, – You rightly deemed the recent report of the Chief Inspector of Prisons Mark Kelly to be of such importance as to make it your lead story (“Inhumane conditions linked to 50% rise in prison deaths,” November 7th).
This report is not only a major challenge for the Government but also implicitly calls for more imaginative sentencing by the judiciary.
The full report makes grim reading. Today, more than 500 prisoners are sleeping on floors in overcrowded cells. This must end.
One way of hastening this would be to increase remission from 25 per cent to 40 per cent. This ought not to cause disquiet.
In the UK, while the legal right to remission has been removed, prisoners are generally released once they have served between 40 per cent and 65 per cent of their sentences.
Secondly, we need an expanded and fully resourced Probation Service to allow for more prisoners to be released under intense supervision.
Thirdly, the failure to deliver radical rehabilitation programmes in all our prisons suggest that part of the response may require a dedicated minister for prisons to drive the necessary reforms.
The inspector’s report was delivered to Minister for Justice Helen McEntee on March 31st, but not released until last week . All outstanding reports on individual prisons should be published without further delay. – Yours, etc,
GARRETT SHEEHAN,
Dublin 14.
Goosed again
Sir, – Ian O’Connor (Letters, November 13th) criticises your reporting on the refusal of planning permission for a housing development in my local area on the basis that it “shamefully scapegoats Brent geese”.
I hope the housing development goes ahead and the geese will not be too discommoded by being confined to the 240 acres of Saint Anne’s Park adjacent to the site in question.
Leaving aside the question of whether one can scapegoat a goose (scapegoose, perhaps?), if we cannot build housing where it is needed for human habitation, we really are goosed. – Yours, etc,
ALAN EUSTACE,
Artane,
Dublin 5.
Integrated education
Sir, – David Griffin (Letters, November 11th), commenting on the lack of interest by politicians in pursuing a policy of integrated education, asks: “Does anyone really care about integrated education in Northern Ireland?”
Poll after poll indicates there is a significant majority support for educational pluralism.
Since the foundation of the northern state a policy of segregation of communities was rigorously enforced in line with policies ensuring a continuation of unionist hegemony in predominantly nationalist areas.
Indeed, a recent survey found that in excess of 90 per cent of the population in the North lives in denominationally segregated housing.
Therefore, the successful integration of students in education can only come about if there is the same appetite to pursue a similar policy of integrated housing.
This policy of integrated education, must be consensus based, not mandatory, where difference is not just tolerated but respected, where all creeds, colours and systems are celebrated and where the existence of schools with a differing ethos is both welcomed and defended.
Although I am fully supportive of educational pluralism, I also support parental choice.
I do not subscribe to the view that the mandatory integration of schools will somehow make sectarianism history. – Yours, etc,
TOM COOPER,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.
Legal tender
Sir, – Dermot O’Rourke (Letters, November 12th) tells us that his £10 Northern Ireland note could not be accepted in Exeter in Devon, England, because “the shop assistant did not recognise the note or hadn’t the authority to recognise Northern Ireland as part of the UK”.
There is another explanation: Northern Ireland banknotes are not legal tender in England. Nor are banknotes from Scotland, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man.
When travelling in the UK, it’s useful to know how united they are, and how united they aren’t. – Yours, etc,
DAVID TAYLOR,
Glenageary,
Co Dublin.
Hats off to Miriam
Sir, – As an ardent reader of all that Miriam Lord pens to paper over many years, I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate Miriam on her superb front page of November 12th.
Without a TV for decades, she painted me a most stimulating, personal and vivid picture of what took place in Dublin Castle, on Tuesday.
Yet again, Miriam combined the solemn dignity with the, most important mundane details, while capturing the essence of what President Catherine Connolly promises for her term in office.
Bravo, Bravo. – Yours, etc.
CIARÁN FINN,
Graiguenamanagh,
Co Kilkenny.
Taking the soup
Sir, – The recent correspondence about menu choices put me in mind of my good friend Gerry Stembridge’s account of a visit to a midlands restaurant.
When asked if the soup of the day was homemade, the waitress replied quickly with an indignant “Certainly not!” – Yours, etc,
DAVID GRANT,
Holywood,
Co Down.
