Sir, – Emmet Scanlon encourages restraint on the part of the print media on the grounds that residential property supplements contributed to housing being seen as a commodity rather than as a social need (Letters, September 16th). He may be right. But I think your commercial property supplement provides a valuable service in revealing the madness of the prices being paid for residential property sites.
Already in 2020 you reported on the planned sale of a site with planning permission for 291 apartments at a site cost of €155,000 per unit and the sale of a site for 20 homes at a cost of €435,000 per unit.
I need hardly say that these prices are at a premium to the prices which would be paid if the sites were sold as vegetable patches or for animal husbandry. That premium inherent in the value of private property is the result of a public act. I have yet to hear any convincing argument as to why our young people should have to take out 20- or 30-year mortgages to pay this premium.
The Government needs to deal with this nonsense, by referendum if necessary. Some contributors to the exorbitant cost of housing in Ireland may be intractable. This one is not. – Yours, etc,
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PAT O’BRIEN,
Mooncoin,
Co Kilkenny.