Rents do not ‘go up’ by themselves

Sir, – Yet again we hear on the news that rents have "gone up" (irishtimes.com, December 20th). Anyone would think that rents were some kind of biological process or natural phenomenon whose movements were a mystery. Rents do not "go up", they are put up, by landlords.

Perhaps if your writers were to report on the matter in those terms, it might bring some clarity to the discussion. Or has the quasi-religious veneration of “the market” completely deprived us of the use of reason? – Yours, etc,

TERRY MOYLAN,

Dublin 12.