Sir, – Congratulations to Mary Montaut (October 6th) for referring me to the excellent article by Dan O’Brien (Weekend Review, October 1st).
The desire to raise properties prices back to boom levels only supports the banks, developers and bondholders, not the interests of the Irish people.
We talk about gross and net salary but there is a very important third category: living salary, ie, your salary after paying your rent/mortgage.
The cost of having a roof over your head is by and large the greatest expense most people have.
While the Government railed against Ireland’s decreased competitiveness, it ignored the fact that increases in wages were mostly going directly to developers (sometimes via landlords) in the increases in the costs of houses and rental properties. One could almost call it a developers’ tax.
As these essential cost of living expenses were raised, people asked for larger salaries to compensate, which then signalled the developers to increase the cost of houses again.
By enforcing low rents and property costs, we would discourage speculation and provide a firm base for people to accept competitive wages: as the amount they would have to live on after their biggest expense is subtracted would be exactly the same. – Yours, etc,