Make rents sustainable

WE have had a lot comment from eminent sources giving dire warnings about the dangers of dropping upward-only rent reviews. We are lectured on the dangers of a collapse in property values if rents are revised downwards to more affordable levels.

What I would like to know is where these same experts were when the bubble first started to inflate? Where were their dire warnings about the dangers of unsustainable property values and subsequent unaffordable rent reviews? The laws of supply and demand must filter down and sustainable rents must be available. Otherwise, we will have whole streets of empty properties and nothing increased but the numbers of bankrupt businesses and dole queues.

John Rogers

Rathowen

Westmeath