Madam, - In the season that's in it, Arthur Beesley's report on the enormous profit generated by a syndicate of property speculators on a property transaction in south Dublin made grim reading (The Irish Times, December 7th)..
I say "grim" because inevitably this profit will be passed on by the developer and will be reflected in the prices that people will be required to pay at this location either to get on or move up the property ladder. These increased prices will in turn no doubt feed into property prices in other locations, as in the past.
What a pity that a market analysis was not presented in tandem with the coverage so that your readers could be informed of the scale of these financial consequences and be allowed to assess for themselves the impact that such speculation will have on their and on their children's prospects of being able to buy a home.
Even allowing that a speculator can and does incur both professional and banking charges, and so does in some way generate minimal employment, can it not be reasonably argued that speculators generally may be largely responsible for the inflation in house prices?
While I am fully aware of the begrudger health warning that can be appended to a letter containing these sentiments, details of this particular transaction filled me with a mixture of anger and frustration. My wife and I have with difficulty succeeded in obtaining entry to the housing market for our two eldest daughters, who now own a property jointly. We are now trying to give our third child a "leg-up" to enable him to purchase a small apartment outside Dublin.
No doubt the usual mantra that "the market dictates" will be trotted out to justify the financial exercise outlined in your report. The children (and future) of this country, including the remaining two of our five children, may wish to amend the aforementioned to read: "the market dictators". - Yours, etc.,
TONY TAAFFE, Finglas, Dublin 11.