Sir, – The Citizens’ Assembly is now discussing the housing shortage. How many homeless people are members? An early summer school that will just reiterate the obvious. There will be no resolution to the housing crisis as long as people see housing as a tool of investment rather than a basic right.
For instance, legislation to allow any individual to own no more than two homes would release properties onto the market which would reduce asking prices. A ceiling on rents for 10 years, regardless of inflation, would also rouse the large landlords from their cosy slumber and make them sell. Alternatively, we can wait for recession, war or mass emigration to provide some kind of answer.
There must be a musical in all this deliberate misery.
The Disenfranchised Isle? – Yours, etc,
EUGENE TANNAM,
Firhouse,
Dublin 24.