Madam, - Since Mr Tom Parlon's party is ostensibly closer to America than to Europe, may I, as an expatriate American citizen, and a friend of Ireland, quote what a late, great American political-economist and another true friend of Ireland had to say about property rights?
"Give a man security that he may reap, and he will sow; assure him of possession of the house he wants to build, and he will build it. These are the natural rewards of labour. The ownership of land has nothing to do with it." - Henry George (1879).
The right of what we Americans call "eminent domain" and the Anglo-Irish refer to as "compulsory purchase" is a necessary tool to enforce, as may be required, the universal sovereignty of the whole nation (not merely landlords pro-tem) over the whole territory of the country. Another tool that also expresses the sovereignty of the nation over the individual possessor is the rate. The late Jack Lynch, merely to win a temporary election in 1977, permanently abolished the rating system, thus destroying at one stroke all possible responsible local democracy in Ireland.
The remedy? Rate all land and impose a site value tax pro-rata to zoning. Then watch your "affordable housing shortage" disappear before your very eyes! - Yours, etc.,
HERB MEYER,
Dublin Road,
Tuam,
Co Galway.