Sir, – The narrative that only 10 per cent of Ireland's housing stock is apartments compared to a European average of 30 to 50 per cent is misleading ("The faceless funds behind Ireland's surging buy-to-rent sector", Business, February 19th).
It is typically used by developers and their lobbyists to argue for relaxations in planning rules and building standards to construct more apartments so we can “catch up” with our continental neighbours.
The reality is different. Apartments are urban developments, and if we compare our share of apartments in urban areas in Ireland with urban areas in Europe we find that Ireland is at 35 per cent (CSO 2016) compared to 40 per cent in Europe (Eurostat 2019) We are ahead of countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, Italy and Austria. The line that if it wasn’t for the institutional investors, none of these apartments would have been built is also overused by lobbyists. Again, the reality is different. It is these very investors with their deep pockets who have the capacity to outbid all other potential purchasers, driving up the price of land to the extent that they end up being the only available buyers.
The Government wants more apartments to be built at the same time as wanting to promote home-ownership. These are two conflicting aims if it facilitates institutional investors in scooping up land and buildings for apartments which are only for rent. – Yours, etc,
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Dr LORCAN SIRR,
Senior Lecturer in Planning and Development,
Technological
University Dublin.