Madam, - Planning permission for rural housing is often conditional on a house not being sold for five years. Similarly, there is a requirement that the house be built within five years. The coincidence is remarkable - clearly, you must build the house in time to sell it!
A ruling that the house must be kept for 15 or 20 years would be more appropriate. That way, farming families would be entitled to facilitate the next generation living on the farm, while preventing wholesale rezoning of farm land.
- Yours etc.,
QUENTIN GARGAN, Coomanore North, Bantry, Co Cork.
Madam, - It is now easier to build a five-bedroomed house than to keep a herd of cows in rural Ireland. We can't therefore be surprised that sites are the most valuable commodity farmers can produce. - Yours, etc.,
WILLIAM FOGARTY, The Sweepstakes, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4.