Sir, - Like you, I too welcome the publication of the Peter Bacon Report. The Government can be congratulated for responding to some needs within the housing sector. It appears we can now look forward to increased availability in the housing market. The stamp duty proposals by Bacon, accepted and indeed improved on by the Environment Minister, should encourage first-time buyers to examine the option of buying within their existing communities. The speculative buyer has been rapped over the knuckles and a price will have to be paid by those who invest in the housing market, rather than those who just want to buy a home to live in. The first-time buyers' problems are being addressed.
But what of the more vulnerable sectors of our society: tenants in rented dwellings; tenants on the over-stretched waiting lists of the local authorities? An opportunity to address their crisis situations has been missed in this report's recommendations. While speculators were driving up the cost of new and even second-hand homes, a pool of rented property had to be available to address the needs of those who do not wish cannot afford to buy their own homes. Good landlords should be rewarded. Why not a covenant tax relief for buyers who agree to rent out accommodation for at least 10 years? Are we to continue to accept that all returning emigrants want to buy homes when many were quite happy to live in controlled rented dwellings in other jurisdictions?
What of the tenants at the bottom of our local authority housing lists? Will the Bacon Report recommendations offer them any hope? While I accept the wisdom of waiting for the proposals on strategic land use expected in another report to be published in 1999, I do hope that the Government is already considering positive ways of helping local authorities to meet their housing needs. Land zoned for housing should include at least 10 per cent zoned to meet social housing needs. Moneys raised by stamp duty could be ring-fenced to build these houses. My local authority, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council, has already informed its elected councillors that it will not be able to meet its housing needs. It reports a huge rise among the homeless, the availability of just 150 sites for housing development and little uptake for the Social Housing Scheme. The limits of £40,000 on house prices just makes it an unrealistic option.
The Government has gone some way to deal with market problems but it needs to give much more attention to the problems faced by other sectors in our communities who just want a decent roof over their heads. - Is mise,
Niamh Bhreathnach
Anglesea Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin.