CATHAL MacGABHANN,
Sir, - In your issue of July 10th Frank McDonald shows he is unable to free himself from his obsession about people who wish to live outside urban centres.
His attitude is almost to criminalise the minority who don't wish to live in an urban centre as he does. The fact that 95 per cent of our ancestors lived outside towns and villages inclines some people to appreciate the charms of country living in spite of many disadvantages.
His arithmetic and his conclusions are baseless. To take his figure of 18,000 one-off houses per annum: If 18,000 houses were built on half-acre sites each year for 20 years this would consume 180,000 acres of land, or less than 1 per cent of our total land area. Some 360,000 families would have a wonderfully revitalising effect on the countryside and the farming community would be much better off.
Of course, there would have to be sensible regulations regarding ribbon building, effluent treatment, respect for sites of cultural interest, scenic amenity, etc. It would be much better socially and environmentally if a large number of (small) farmers and buildings make smaller capital gains, than if a small number of urban speculators and developers make obscene profits building more concrete jungles on the fringes of our already congested cities.
The basic infrastructure exists already in rural electrification, group water schemes, tarred boreens, schools, churches, halls, playing fields and, most important, warm communities.
The different interests should respect each other instead of trading insults and should seek to look for solutions, beneficial to the country as a whole. - Yours, etc.,
CATHAL MacGABHANN, Na Fabhraí Maola Thoir, Bearna, Gaillimh.