Sir, – I wholeheartedly agree with Fintan O'Toole's piece "Opposition to social housing is matter of ideology not economics" (Opinion & Analysis, October 20th).
The cost of not providing suitable housing to our homeless is measured in extra costs, both in in the short and long term, to our health, social welfare, educational and criminal justice budgets.
Homelessness is endemic and is making the lives of so many of those already marginalised and socially deprived absolutely miserable and is cancelling any social gains achieved during the economic boom.
Given the fact that the present housing crisis was caused by past policies of protecting the housing market, it beggars belief that the solution is now ignored by the very same ideological outlook. – Yours, etc,
Dr DES CROWLEY,
Dublin 6 .
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole concludes an otherwise excellent column on the need for social housing with a fallacy. He implies that a country needs to be a republic to forsake narrow ideology and build on the foundations of real human need.
Many of the European countries with the most progressive social policies based on real needs are not republics but constitutional monarchies. – Yours etc,
JIM CUNNINGHAM,
Swords,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – What Fintan O’Toole did not say in his article, possibly for reasons of space, was that the people who were given social housing, freed from the uncertainty of tenure and buoyed up with the certainty of reasonable rent outlay, went on to invest their energies and limited finances in ensuring the education and development of their children, who in turn went on to become talented and productive members of a society that generated modest prosperity in the 1960s and 1970s, with people on average salaries being able to afford to house themselves.
We even had a government minister who set up a commission under Mr Justice Kenny to consider if the increased land values generated by pressure for housing should by right accumulate for the benefit of the public at large or be hoovered up by private individuals who contributed nothing to its generation.
Now is the time not only to re-embrace the ideology of social housing but to resurrect the Kenny report and set up a system of modest prosperity for the many rather than another financial killing for the few. – Yours, etc,
JIM SHINE,
Abbeyside,
Dungarvan,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – I applaud Fintan O’Toole’s elegantly simple article about how his family benefited from social housing, at a time when the national wealth was a fraction of what it is today.
The inflated property values caused by the latest bubble are fooling us once again into thinking we are all getting richer. After losing a savage proportion of the national wealth in the property casino in 2008 we are rushing back to the table in a fool’s errand to win it all back. In the process the homeless, the renters, the Travellers and the entire millennial generation are being trampled underfoot.
The Government needed no prompting to cap property taxes and ensure that the bubble will blow on and on.
Sure won’t it last forever? And won’t we have a soft landing next time? And won’t everyone benefit?
The answer, of course, is thrice no and when it all does burst the next time, as usual the ones who will have to pay will be the ones who never speculated. It is the poor working stiffs, the young teachers, the young workers and the young who can find no work who will be cut and cut again to pay for this heartless gamble.
This is no ideology. It is pigs at the swill. – Yours, etc,
ARTHUR DEENY,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Growing up on an Irish farm in the 1950s, and continuing as a veterinarian in the farming industry, I was familiar with pollard as an animal feed. Pollard is a byproduct of the flour milling process. It was usually fed as a diet for pregnant sows. Now thanks to Fintan O’Toole, I know that a pollard is an animal that has had its horns removed.
I am happy to learn something new every day. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK TALTY,
Tulla,
Co Clare.
Sir, – Fintan O’Toole’s paean to the State’s provision of social housing in 1949 simply does not stack up.
A significant part of the demand for social housing now comes from one-parent families and immigrants. In 1949 Ireland dealt with the one-parent family “problem” by family secrecy, adoption or emigration. Immigration to Ireland was minuscule in 1949.
Therefore, it is disingenuous to compare the provision of social housing today with the position in 1949 when significantly different demands existed. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN O’SULLIVAN,
Letterkenny,
Co Donegal.
Sir, – Congratulations to Fintan O’Toole for his article on social housing which underlines the extent to which the political life of the country is dominated by right-wing ideology.
The indifference and complacency of both Government parties in the face of a housing crisis, which can only be described as a national disaster, are breathtaking and shameful.
The 1940s was also a time when our neighbours in Britain, who economically were on their knees at the time, embarked on a programme of change which delivered the National Health Service, reformed education and essentially changed the face of Britain for the better, a fact many Irish emigrants would testify to.– Yours, etc,
LEO ROCHE,
Rathmines,
Dublin 6.