Madam, – News that Nama is entering the residential property lending business, with “special offers” to kickstart the Irish property market (Front page, May 20), is beyond depressing.
Have we truly learned nothing at all? We have utterly ruined the Irish economy through our unhealthy addiction to property speculation.
Although house prices remain artificially – and uncompetitively – high, we are now going to throw yet more resources into reinflating what is left of this moribund asset bubble?
Whatever solution is found for the problems caused by our reckless bank guarantee of 2008, one thing is clear: If we manage to find it, Ireland’s path to economic recovery will not be paved with the bricks of another housing bubble, but rather with letters of credit from those who buy our exports.
This in turn will depend on keeping the cost base low, and that means getting the price of unproductive asset classes like land down to reasonable levels. – Yours, etc,