Letters to the Editor, June 30th: On a new approach to house building, beating gridlock and free speech

Irish Times

5 hours ago

Sir, – Average car usage in Ireland is about 15,000km per annum, each car using 1,000 litres of petrol, or 9,000 kWh equivalent.
Most new houses, being remote from public transport, are occupied by families with two cars, meaning 18,000 kilowatt hours are expended on their travel needs, or about four times the energy consumption of a 100sq m house.
Achieving high thermal performance standards for houses comes at a significant cost, but any economies in terms of energy usage are utterly outweighed by the concomitant reliance on private car transport.
In this regard, it would be just to re-evaluate dwellings and include the average necessary transport energy associated with each dwelling before awarding a rating.
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The process of determining where houses are to be built largely founders on the issue of marketability, where every design decision is taken primarily with a view to meeting a contrived set of needs, as articulated by estate agents representing the 'average family': this need not be so.
Ireland has many not-for-profit systems for delivering housing: housing associations, housing co-operatives, local authority social housing. Some encourage end-user participation in the process, but rarely to a sufficient degree.
It is opportune to question the market-led provision of dwellings. Advanced systems of co-operative housing exist in Zurich, Vienna and throughout Europe. One method of facilitating end-user participation in housing co-operatives would be the reintroduction of long-term ground rents by the State on the extensive land bank which is in State ownership, moderating construction costs; by amortising the cost of land over, say, 60 years, one significant component of the cost of dwelling provision is addressed.
Much of the historic core, and inner suburbs, of Dublin was built by small-scale developers, typically carpenters and masons, who built short terraces on leased land.
There is a case for arranging that large-scale housing development of, say, more than six dwellings be undertaken only by Approved Housing Bodies, such as housing associations and co-operatives.
In order to address the imbalance in the nature and quality of housing, a moratorium could be placed on the acquisition of housing development land by developers, leading to a moderation in the cost of construction land, and a plurality of housing. – Yours, etc,
PAUL ARNOLD,
Ranelagh,
Dublin.
Sir – Most working mornings, the M50 grinds to a near halt, particularly during the peak hours of 7:30-9am. It's a familiar frustration for thousands of commuters.
But, in recent weeks since schools closed for the summer holidays, the difference has been striking; traffic flows more freely, journeys are shorter and the usual stress on drivers has eased noticeably.
This pattern is neither new nor surprising. Yet it raises an important question: has the Government seriously studied how school-related traffic contributes to daily congestion and, more importantly, what might be done to reduce it?
One possibility that deserves serious attention is the provision of free and reliable bus transport for post-primary students. Such a policy could yield multiple public benefits.
Fewer school drop-offs would reduce overall traffic volumes and vehicle emissions, making our roads safer and cleaner. Parents, no longer tethered to school run routines, could commute more efficiently, lowering stress and increasing productivity.
Moreover, when older students travel independently, they gain resilience, confidence and a stronger sense of personal responsibility – skills that serve them well beyond the school gates.
In short, smarter transport policies for young people could create a ripple effect of benefits across Irish society, from reduced pollution and road congestion to healthier family routines, to better outcomes for students themselves.
I believe we need to ask, are we investing in the right systems to get us and our children to where we need to go? – Yours, etc,
DR BRIGID TEEVAN,
Aughrim,
Co Wicklow.
Costs over aesthetics
Sir, – 'Cost', announces Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, will 'take priority over 'aesthetics' in future State infrastructure projects' (News, June 27th).
Ah yes, we have identified Dublin city's most pressing problem – too many beautiful (but costly) buildings springing up all over the place.
Despite the implication inherent in this ludicrous statement, I am wracking my brain to think of a single visually appealing edifice that either the State or private enterprise has constructed in the past 60 or 70 years.
I can quite easily, however, recall at least 20 beautiful, architecturally significant heritage structures that the State (through the working apparatus of local government) has seen fit to destroy and the ugly, flimsy, grotesquely expensive, wasteful eyesores that replaced them.
The idea that the State has ever prioritised how beautiful a building is over what it costs is gaslighting of the first rank.
As your excellent guide to 'Who owns Stephen's Green' (June 7th) illustrated in minute detail, the sad fact is that the State, city councils and local government haven't given a second thought to 'aesthetics' since some time around the turn of the century.
The result is there for us all to see in the pitiful hodgepodge of architectural styles and general dereliction on display across the capital. – Yours, etc,
SIMON O'NEILL,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
Contactless travel
Sir, – I've been following the discussion of various contactless payment travel options from Cambridge to Belfast to Berlin to Corfu.
I'm currently visiting Luxembourg where all public transport is free all of the time for everyone.
No complicated payment system and citizens and visitors are rewarded for using a more environmentally sustainable transport option. – Yours, etc,
DARA HOGAN,
Greystones,
Co Wicklow.
Missing you already
Sir, – Joe Duffy has retired, sending our best to him.
But Ireland has lost its therapist and now there's no one to call to say how much we'll miss the man we called about everything. – Yours, etc,
FIONA HICKEY,
Ashbourne,
Co Meath.
Play that again, Van and Neil
Sir, – Last Thursday I fulfilled a lifelong ambition by hearing Neil Young and Van Morrison live in concert. Like many people in that cold field in Malahide, I've been enjoying their music for nearly 50 years.
As your reviewer said, their voices have never sounded better and both men were surrounded by amazing musicians ('
Neil Young and Van Morrison at Malahide Castle: Decades on, these voices have never sounded better
,' June 27th).
This made it all the more disappointing that each chose to sing so many songs – albeit great songs – that many of their audience didn't know.
We were wet, we were cold, some of us have bad backs, sore hips, were afraid to sit (even for the very few hours that the grass was dry) in case we couldn't get up again, but we felt no pain during Gloria and Harvest Moon and Old Man.
There just weren't enough of the songs that brought us to Malahide in our droves.
These wonderful artists are still producing great new music and that, in itself, is inspirational.
But could we not have heard a few more of the songs that have been inspiring us all of our adult lives?
Some part of me feels that we, their lifelong fans and audience, deserved more consideration.
The opportunity may never come again.
It really would have been a marvellous day for a moondance... – Yours, etc,
MÁIRÍN O'KEEFFE,
Drumshanbo,
Co Leitrim.
Ireland and EU membership
Sir, – Philip Brady (Letters, June 28th) comments that maybe it's time for those countries that feel as strongly as Ireland about the Gaza situation to take unilateral action.
Does he also think that on other matters where there is no agreement that again countries can go it alone?
The whole point of the EU is we act in a united way for the benefit of all.
The UK did not like this stance and took the ultimate action and ended up leaving.
We cannot have our cake and eat it with regard to our membership of a union that has made a huge difference to the country.
It's a slippery slope he advocates to only do those things that we agree with and ignore those we do not like. We may be an island, but we are also part of Europe and while the decisions made can be unpalatable at times, that's what we signed up for when we joined the EU.
We are a member of the EU and in it for the long haul, we can still shout loud and strong to have things changed from the inside, unlike our neighbour. –Yours, etc,
JOHN BERGIN,
Oxton Wirral,
England.
Sir, – Surely I am not the only one who feels we are compromising too much to humour the US administration?
Last week, a two-pronged assault on global safety was launched: the defunding by the US of the global vaccine alliance, and the redirection of 5 per cent of Nato members' budgets into military spending.
We have endless evidence that weapons tempt their owners to use them.
Having lived in the Global South and seen people's bodies severely damaged, or their lives cut off, by disease that is preventable by vaccination, while learning from pandemics how swiftly viruses cross borders, to cut vaccination programmes and development is to sow death.
No one is safer today. And although the cost to our economies of standing up to bullies may be great, the value of life is priceless. – Yours, etc,
WENDY PHILLIPS,
Co Dublin.
Free speech and working in the US
Sir, – Fifty-two years ago, The Irish Times published my letter deploring US complicity in the coup against Salvador Allende in Chile.
Four years later I was granted a student visa to pursue a PhD at Harvard; I've subsequently married an American, had children and grandchildren here and obtained US citizenship.
In 2025, my excoriation of US actions would likely forestall my obtaining a US visa.
So much for our vaunted First Amendment, and our pontifications about freedom of speech. – Yours, etc,
GERARD S HARBISON,
United States.
Sir, – Reading Geraldine Gregan's letter regarding social media and US visas (Letters, June 25th), I was returned to the memory of my arrival in New York in 1985: How sweet is recall of innocence – and equally sweet – that of innocence lost.
Let me explain: Soon after I arrived, I enrolled and completed the bartending course with the American Bartending School, with the promise of referrals to jobs on offer at that time, spring 1985.
The school sent me for an interview at Charlie O's in Manhattan. I arrived and waited for my interview . The manager walked in, looked at me, and without even approaching me, or interviewing me, he said to his assistant manager: 'He's fine, give him a schedule.'
Likewise at the Department of Motor Vehicles, I presented my British learner permit, with the expectation of getting a US learner permit. The lady glanced at my UK document. 'That'll do, we'll send you a licence,' she said. Soon after, it arrived.
I relate these stories to present a time when there was a certain innocence, and what I felt was an endearing sense of trust, all of which changed on September 11th, 2001: Innocence lost!
As I taught an English literature class at La Salle Academy, suddenly, the 13-year-old students raced to the windows. In the near distance were those monstrous planes. The persistent odour of burning and smoke hung in the air for many months.
America changed. Documents now scrutinised, checked every six months, even when in the same job for years.
I look back sweetly at those casual times when documents got just a glance and getting hired to do a job was uncomplicated.
While I acknowledge the need for stringent security measures since that fateful day, I feel that now in the Trump era, the scrutiny goes too far – files and more files, with information gleaned from phones and from sources that are not the government's business to probe.
Long-established US citizens are not exempt or safe from investigation.
Am I over-stretching to suggest images of East Germany's Stasi with warehouses full with thick and ever thickening files on the population's lives?
Having said all that, America is and will always be for me, a sweet and satisfying memory. – Yours, etc,
PADDY FITZPATRICK,
Cathedral Ave,
Cork.
Hospital appointments
Sir, –Recently a woman I know, who has a long-term serious illness, had an 8.30am hospital appointment, although she lived more than three hours' drive from the venue.
This meant that she had to get up at an unearthly hour and drive there, mostly in winter darkness on secondary roads, adding to the stress and danger of having a traffic accident.
The alternative would have been for her to drive the previous day and seek accommodation for the night in a hotel or B&B nearer to the hospital, adding to the cost, but reducing the stress somewhat.
Surely it is not beyond the bounds of possibility for planners to come up with a system that allows those patients who live further from the hospital to have appointments scheduled for later in the day?
This wouldreduce the stress and the danger of motor accidents and, in some cases, the cost of an overnight stay, a cost that can be quite considerable for some patients. – Yours, etc,
BOBBY CARTY,
Templelogue,
Dublin.