Sir, - The recent advertisement from the Department of the Environment inviting submissions from interested parties to help ascertain why land and house prices are so high in greater Dublin bespeaks a certain puzzlement on the issue in local and central government.
This must bring a surreptitious grin to the faces of certain councillors, politicians and members of the construction industry. Indeed, some decades ago, the same issue was the subject of a similar body. Perhaps we can help summarise the situation by a quotation from a rhyme, dating back to the Victorian period, published in Tarbuck's "Handbook of House Property":
"...the richest crop for any field
is a crop of bricks for it to yield;
the richest crop that it can grow
is a crop of houses in a row."
Things appear not to have changed. - Yours, etc.,
Niall McNamara,
Old Court Road, Dublin 24.