Sir, – The article by Kitty Holland ("Residents facing eviction, March 15th) proves that the Government's housing policy is working very well – for the wealthy owners of property.
Ten families, including elderly and sick people, face eviction into homelessness, some of whom have lived there [in the development] for almost 20 years, and whose children are going to school in the local area.
The owners of the property want to evict them and re-let them, probably at twice the rent they are currently paying.
The Government should compulsorily purchase them, at the same price that the owners paid for them five years ago, and designate them as “affordable housing,” thus allowing the tenants to remain there and pay an affordable rent.
The failure to intervene, on the excuse that the right to private property is secured by the Constitution, would show that the Government is firmly on the side of the owners of property and not on the side of tenants who are struggling. – Yours, etc,
Fr PETER McVERRY,
Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, Gardiner Street,
Dublin 1.