Sir, – Peter McVerry ("Apartheid Irish-style created by housing policy", Opinion & Analysis, June 27th) raises a very important question relating to the evolution of housing policy in Ireland since the foundation of the State.
Irish government policy in the 1930s and 1940s was such that social housing estates amounted to 60 per cent and 70 per cent respectively of all new housing construction in those decades. This represented an effort to get rid of the infamous tenement housing in urban areas, particularly in Dublin.
Unintentionally, however, this policy sowed the seeds of how Irish housing developed thereafter. From the 1950s on, a proliferation of private housing estates resulted in what Fr McVerry correctly describes as apartheid-style housing in Ireland.
He points out that the Planning and Development Act 2000 required builders to allocate 20 per cent of housing output to social and affordable housing. However, resistance from builders and private owners quickly buried that requirement. It was simply abandoned.
Can such a policy be enacted and succeed? The answer is yes. This very policy has been in place and successfully implemented in New Zealand for over 50 years. Political will is all that is needed. – Yours, etc,
ALBERT COLLINS,
Bishopscourt Road,
Cork.