Sir, – Recent coverage of student accommodation highlights a crisis that extends well beyond students (“Ensuites in student housing are ‘wasteful,’ says Minister,” January 8th). Excessive accommodation costs are now restricting access to higher education, forcing students to alter course and college choices or defer study altogether.
They are also a growing barrier for academics, particularly early-career staff, when considering whether they can afford to work in our universities.
While universities have been drawn increasingly into the provision of student housing, it is neither realistic nor appropriate to place primary responsibility for affordable accommodation on higher education institutions.
The financial, managerial and operational demands of funding, building and maintaining accommodation risk diverting university leadership away from their core purpose: providing education and conducting research. Such pressures can distort decisions on student intake, course provision and on-campus attendance requirements.
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There is a danger attached to obligating non-educational priorities to dominate institutional decision- making. Accommodation is a national infrastructure issue requiring coordinated public action.
It should not be solved at the expense of access to education or the integrity of our universities. – Yours, etc,
FRANK JONES,
General Secretary,
Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT),
Dublin.
Sir, – It was with growing alarm and unease that I read the recent article on student housing by Minister for Further and Higher Education, James Lawless. Some lines in particular stood out, such as: “Ultimately pension funds build houses,” and, regarding international markets, “it’s actually a spreadsheet in Zurich”.
This confirms the complete abdication of any responsibility for providing housing by the Government for its citizens and/or its students.
In a country awash with tax receipts, why doesn’t the Government either directly or via local authorities provide housing or at least some of it? Rents could be set at reasonable rates and the State would own the asset.
The mindset seems to be that the State will tweak regulations, thereby further incentivising private investment. What the Government chooses to ignore is that private investment will extract the maximum profit available from its customers – Irish citizens.
For students it might not matter that you achieved the course of your dreams in the Leaving Certificate, you won’t be able to afford a student flat but tough. Many other citizens are condemned to an endless cycle of scraping the rent together or else deciding enough is enough and emigrating. The Government needs to realise that its primary responsibility is to house its citizens and not to cater for the wants of private investment funds. – Yours, etc,
ROB MacGIOLLARNÁTH
Kerry.
Sir, – At the end of 2024 there were 60,000 households on social housing waiting lists and an additional 87,000 households having their rents subsidised by the State.
There are also 2,400 households in emergency accommodation, including more than 5,000 children.
It seems to have gone unnoticed by housing commentators that in the Government’s new housing policy Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030, the big new initiative with regard social housing is the creation of a fully funded “New-Build Team” in each of the 31 local authorities.
These new teams, which are in effect new housing departments, are ringfenced from other local authority activities including the housing section. This means that we now have 62 housing departments in the country; two in each of the 31 local authorities.
There is no integration between these departments nor is there an overseeing co-ordinating body.
Could the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage explain why we need 62 housing departments? – Yours, etc,
Dr ANTHONY LEDDIN,
Castleconnell,
Co Limerick.
Funding Irish theatre
Sir, – As a new year begins, full of hopeful resolutions and ambition, Irish theatre finds itself facing a reality that can no longer be ignored: an Arts Council funding model that has effectively dismantled a thriving theatre company system on which our sector once blossomed.
Today, core and multi-annual funding has been replaced by short-term, competitive project schemes. As a result, many theatre companies no longer exist in any meaningful sense.
Instead, individual artists, most often actors, are forced to operate as de facto producers, spending months navigating complex funding applications simply to make work possible.
Over time, the changes to funding, introduced almost 20 years ago, have had a catastrophic effect on Irish theatre, dismantling a thriving company model along with a vibrant touring network it had built up.
As we step into a new year we ask the Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan to call for the restoration of core and multi-annual funding for theatre companies so that we may rebuild the cherished ecosystem that Irish theatre, artists and audiences once thrived and relied upon. – Yours, etc,
JIMMY MURPHY,
JANE BRENNAN
BARRY McGOVERN
BRÍD NÍ NEACHTAIN
LORCAN CRANITCH
INGRID CRAIGIE
DECLAN CONLON,
Naas Rd,
Dublin 12.
Congestion charges
Sir, – Brendan O’Brien, city council head of traffic, rules out the introduction of congestion charges in Dublin city centre by citing the lack of impact the €13 Dublin Port Tunnel charge makes on the numbers using the tunnel in the morning peak (“Dublin traffic chief rules out congestion charges”, January 7th). Is this argument not self-defeating? One interpretation of Mr O’Brien’s remarks is that the charges levied for use of the port tunnel are not high enough to act as a sufficient deterrent to its usage.
By extension, the same logic could be applied to the introduction of congestion charging in the city centre. In response to his question to “what level of charge would the charge have to be?” – increase the port tunnel charge to find out. – Yours, etc,
JOHN NAUGHTON,
Leopardstown,
Dublin 18.
A tip for Trump
Sir, – A large part of what makes the US military effective in Asia and the Middle East is the fact they have 250,000 soldiers plus hardware stationed at 150 bases in 40-plus countries, many of those in mainland Europe. The EU and Nato, with Australia and Japan, need to let the US know that setting one foot in Greenland would trigger the seizure of those bases and equipment and the expulsion of 250,000 soldiers.
It’s a proportionate response, plus it would be highly effective at reducing the US threat. Hard to stage a European invasion from Texas. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES McLAUGHLIN,
Stoneybatter,
Dublin 7.
Government and climate
Sir, – Next Tuesday, Ireland faces decisions that could further undermine its already failing climate action. In addition to plans for a State-led liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, the site of which was announced in November without prior public consultation, An Coimisiún Pleanála is considering a planning application by Shannon LNG Ltd for a commercial LNG terminal at Tarbert, north Kerry.
This decision carries considerable consequences for Ireland’s climate and human rights obligations.
Ireland is already dangerously off track on its climate targets and facing fines of up to ¤26 billion for failing to meet them.
If the rest of the world polluted at the same rate as Ireland, global temperatures would already have reached 3.6°C above pre-industrial levels, rather than the still catastrophic 2.8°C currently projected by 2100. Introducing LNG will only exacerbate Ireland’s climate failures.
Climate injustices, driven by continued fossil fuel expansion and profiteering, is already devastating lives in countries where Trócaire works. Communities least responsible for climate change suffer most.
UN human rights experts have long warned that high-polluting countries must reject further fossil fuel expansion and, more recently, have urged them to phase it out by 2030.
In July, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a landmark advisory opinion clarifying that countries must use all available means to prevent climate-harming activities and to ensure rapid emissions reductions including private corporations’ emissions.
Emissions arising from a commercial LNG facility would therefore fall within the State’s legal responsibility, and failure to regulate could place Ireland in breach of international law.
Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council has warned that LNG infrastructure would lock Ireland into fossil-fuel dependence and highlighting the significant emissions associated with the full LNG life-cycle, particularly where LNG is sourced via fracking, a practice Ireland banned in 2017 on environmental and health grounds.
Despite the known risks of LNG, the Government has failed to provide clear policy guidance on commercial LNG. Minister for Climate, Energy, and Environment Darragh O’Brien has suggested that commercial LNG would be against Ireland’s climate law, and that commercial LNG would not proceed, surmising it would be illogical, given that even a State-led facility would need to be phased out within 15 years.
However, such indications and Ireland’s support of Colombia’s Belém Declaration on transitioning away from fossil fuels at Cop30 ring hollow while domestic policy continues to enable new fossil fuel infrastructure.
This lack of policy coherence is also reflected in the approval of an expensive and polluting State-led LNG facility, despite the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland warning that gas use must reduce significantly by 2030 to meet legally binding carbon budgets. The guidance from the ICJ, UN experts and Ireland’s climate law, however, is unequivocal.
There is no room for new fossil fuel infrastructure in Ireland. Given Ireland’s outsized contribution to climate change and growing climate failures, how could this development ever be justified? – Yours etc.
SINÉAD LOUGHRAN,
Trócaire,
Co Kildare.
Flying in the face of climate change
Sir, – Regarding Conor Pope’s article “How to maximise your annual leave in 2026 and hit the hotspots at the right time.” January 6th: This article is utterly irresponsible in encouraging readers to fly to four or five destinations throughout the year – given the climate apocalypse we’re facing if we don’t slash greenhouse gas emissions urgently and the fact that flying is the most polluting thing that the average individual does in terms of causing these emissions.
There is only one reference in the article – and a very casual one at that – to the climate impact of aviation, where the author suggests that the reader consider a staycation in June “cutting down on your carbon footprint and saving yourself a few bob on flights and accommodation too”.
If the author is going to include the cost of flights, he should include the cost in terms of greenhouse gas pollution too.
For instance, that return Dublin/Rome flight may cost ¤179 per person. But in terms of carbon emissions, the cost is about half a tonne.
Including the carbon pollution information would help readers understand the cost of flights to their future and particularly the future of their children, generations to come and indeed, and to people in Ireland and around the world who are at the frontlines of the crisis (like the people of Midleton, Co Cork). – Yours, etc,
ANGELA DEEGAN,
Dublin 7.
Supporting Gaza
Sir, – Following the US military action in Venezuela, Miriam Ryan (Letters, January 7th) asks:“surely Ireland and the EU could have taken this opportunity to stand squarely behind international law?’
This should come as no surprise. For the past two years we have seen no meaningful sanctions against the state of Israel for their genocidal actions against the population of Gaza.
The Genocide Convention (enshrined in International Law and Irish domestic law) obligates states to prevent and punish perpetrators of genocide once they learn of a “serious risk” that genocide may be occurring. The International Court of Justice, in their January 2024 ruling against Israel, sounded this risk without any possibility of doubt.
By failing to uphold international law in the case of Gaza, Ireland and the EU have effectively signalled that such laws are optional, thereby paving the way for the very disregard for international law we are now seeing. First, they came for Gaza. – Yours, etc.
SEÁN MARMION,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.
Caught short
Sir, – Simplex crossword today January 7th):
31 across. (6 letters)
Large group of fish….
Answer: SHOAL (5 letters). – Yours, etc,
LESLEY KERRIGAN,
Dublin 14.
PR and the media
Sir, – It is hardly surprising that the chair of the Public Relations Consultants Association should spring to the defence of the PR business (Letters, January 8th). He refers to the “public relations industry”, which implies that it is engaged in the manufacture of goods – I think “business” is more accurate.
While I accept he may be right to complain that characterising PR as “anti-journalism” was an unfair generalisation, nevertheless the two coexist in an uneasy symbiosis.
An important source of information for journalists, yes, but PR always has an agenda. Clients would not otherwise pay for it.
Remember George Orwell’s dictum: “Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.” – Yours, etc,
FELIX M LARKIN,
Cabinteely,
Dublin 18.
Snail mail
Sir, – It was my birthday last Tuesday, January 6th. My family, friends and cousins posted my cards on Friday last, January 2nd.
I write to you to advise An Post tells me it takes five to seven days to receive post throughout Ireland.
I am still waiting today, Thursday, January 8th, for my cards. There are scratch cards in one envelope.
Guess what? I am stressed out. – Yours, etc,
KEVIN HOUGH,
Dublin 14.
Living in hope
Sir, – While recently rummaging through some papers looking for another document (which I didn’t find), I came across a Prize Bond certificate kindly gifted to me by my grandmother for Christmas in December 1994.
After dreams of previously unknown (and unclaimed) riches were dispelled by a visit to the State Savings website, I did start to question my luck having missed out on a prize in approximately 1,612 draws since becoming a bond holder.
Perhaps 2026 is the year my luck changes? – Yours, etc,
NEIL LONG,
Co Dublin.
