Sir, – Some years ago I was in Oporto in Portugal, a beautiful city but one that seemed in terminal decline. The signs included street after street where all first and second floors had been abandoned, with curtains flapping through broken windows.
Today Oporto is alive and well, with the same streets occupied by bars, restaurants, shops and people streaming into shops. How come?
In 2012 the Portuguese government introduced reforms that allowed landlords more flexibility with their rents and offered them a tax allowance for refurbishing domestic dwellings above shops.
If you were to walk around central Dublin, and indeed most provincial cities in Ireland, they would remind you of Oporto before 2012.
The square footage involved would not be the absolute answer to the housing crisis but would be an inexpensive first step which could also bring life back to the main streets of Ireland. – Yours, etc,
JONATHAN IRWIN,
Johnstown,
Naas,
Co Kildare.