Madam, - I would have felt that anybody who takes even a passing interest in local government in this country would have acknowledged that when a public authority gets the green light to build 100 houses, and in fact produces fewer than 60, it is not reaching its targets.
Evidently the writer of your Editorial of December 1st does not agree.
The reality in public administration and local government has been that, over the years, there has been a lack of objective performance indicators against which achievements can be measured. In publishing the statistics for social housing output for the main housing authorities over a 10-year period, I had hoped to produce an informed debate. Your Editorial, however sees the publication of statistics as the "blame game".
Against the reasonable expectations of a logical debate, this tendentious Editorial falls well below the standard one would expect from The Irish Times, and adds nothing positive to the debate on the provision of housing for all sectors of Irish society. - Yours, etc.,
DICK ROCHE, TD, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dublin 2.