Letters to the Editor: Government perpetuating ongoing crisis in housing

I might as well be entering a raffle with Elon Musk to head to Mars as I would be of owning a home in Montenotte or Macroom, writes one correspondent.

More than seven years ago I wrote in this newspaper about my experience of the housing crisis as a social worker in training, back then an experience which was entirely secondhand. The problem was acute, and while the proposed solutions from outside the Government were many, we were assured by those within, that the market would solve everything. A restrained drizzle of social housing here, a sprinkle of co-living there, and a shovel load of the private market would provide for our every need. This problem couldn’t be solved overnight we were told, but help was on the way. Sure what could go wrong?

Nearly a decade on, enter Fianna Fáil, With the euphoria of a man who had just climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand, the Taoiseach spoke about how the government were now going to tackle the housing crisis, like 12 years of ineptitude by Fine Gael and more recently by themselves was best forgotten.

I was angry seven years ago at the apparent lack of insight by those within government circles about the housing issues facing people. That I am here all these years later and the country is in a worse situation makes a mockery of our politics, but more than that, our apparent democracy. Perhaps most damning of all is that unless there is a serious shift in how our ruling class, and by extension us all, view housing in this country, I could be here in seven more years in the same or worse situation.

Since 2009 we have been living with the consequences of governing political parties whom value the market over all else. Where has it got us? Rent controls which have been proven to have a significantly positive impact on the rental market across a plethora of advanced nations remains unfathomable apparently, Fianna Fáil publicly citing its unconstitutionality. And there’s nothing like a bit of skewed supply and demand to justify more gouging.

As I skirt around the edge of my 30s, working a full-time professional job, I might as well be entering a raffle with Elon Musk to head to Mars as I would be of owning a home in Montenotte or Macroom.

It is about time that our Government accepted their role in perpetuating the crisis through their inability to take control of the situation.

Diarmaid Twomey

Cork

End of the road for EV batteries

Transport Minister Eamon Ryan has a target of one million electric vehicles (EV) on Irish roads by 2030. As each vehicle contains an average of one tonne of lithium batteries per vehicle, I wonder what Mr Ryan intends to do with one million tons of highly toxic and potentially explosive waste when these EVs reach their end of life. At present no scrap merchant will touch an end of life electric vehicle.

Eugene Rochford

St Patricks Avenue

Crossmolina

Co Mayo

Abortion too easy an option for HSE

As long as the HSE’s ‘My Options’ service fails to provide women experiencing unplanned pregnancies with a full range of options besides just abortion, it should not continue to be funded by the government.

When My Options was rolled out in 2019 to great fanfare, the Government promised it would be a service which provided women with “all their options”, including but not limited to abortion.

It further states that staff do not engage in directive counselling. Unfortunately, this has not been the case, as revealed in a study published by Students for Life in January 2022. Staff repeatedly encouraged women in doubt to make “an appointment [for an abortion] anyway”, which massively overstepped their boundaries.

Budget 2023 has several major shortcomings, including the renewed uncritical funding of HSE My Options. Clearly this ‘service’ needs an urgent overhaul until sufficient training is provided to ensure women in unplanned pregnancies are given the option of receiving information on positive alternatives to abortion and social welfare supports.

Siobhan Nic Cathail

Ráth Ara

Contae Ros Com‘1áin

Dental schools starved of funding

I read that the secretary general of the Department of Health Robert Watt has admitted a failure to plan for the worsening shortage of doctors and nurses.

Admitting failure is an important first step. Can I also alert readers to the fact that we have an unprecedented shortage of dentists and the incredible scenario where in both our dental schools nearly half of the places are occupied by students from outside the EEA who are paying fees almost 15 times higher than successful EEA candidates.

The reason is simple. Our dental schools have been starved of funds for decades and are now forced to rely on generating more income by admitting students from outside the EEA who are prepared to pay as much as €46,000 at Cork Dental School, for example, compared to an annual charge of just over €3,000 for Irish and EU students — ‘Medical card holders ‘missing out on dental care’ as dentists leave scheme’ (Irish Examiner, online, September 22). This means there are fewer places available for Irish and EEA school leavers and, taken with the fact that non-EEA students are less likely to practice here in Ireland, means we are falling further and further behind in trying to bridge the gap between demand and supply of dentists (and nurses / hygienists) here in Ireland.

To introduce an element of farce, we now find that Irish school leavers, who wish to study dentistry but cannot find a place in our own dental schools, are prepared to travel to private dental schools in Spain, Portugal, and further afield to study dentistry and to pay annual tuition fees of well over €25,000 for the privilege. What a complete and utter shambles.

The Departments of Health and Education can take immediate steps and start to properly fund our dental schools but beyond that it needs to commence an urgent dental workforce planning exercise with funding to implement change as soon as possible.

The Irish Dental Association has recommended a series of changes which will play an important part in addressing the current staffing crisis in dentistry including the establishment of a new training scheme to replace that abolished by the HSE more than a decade ago, changes in work permit provisions and many other reforms.

Can we now move beyond analysis and to urgent government action while the crisis in accessing dental care worsens to the detriment in particular of those who can least afford dental care, most need urgent assistance and are the last to be considered with the successive failure to address this apparently invisible problem?

Fintan Hourihan

IDA House

Leopardstown Office Park

Sandyford

Co Dublin

School is no place for alcohol ‘charity’

When Dr Tony Holohan launched the report of the National Substance Misuse Strategy Steering Group on February 7, 2012, the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) which was part of the steering group was annoyed that paragraphs of the report relating to rape and domestic violence were not replaced by their less damning views on those subjects and so launched their own minority report on the same day.

Meas (Mature Enjoyment of Alcohol in Society) was a failed attempt by the alcohol industry to try and influence government.

After MEAS we had another alcohol initiative: Diageo’s futile Stop out of Control Drinking which soon died a death.

Next to step up was Drinkaware, which advertises itself as “The” national charity and which shares the drink industry advertisements promoting the sale of alcohol.

So the industry promotes their product and their “charity” at the same time surely that is unacceptable.

Drinkaware has free access to our schools despite previous requests by Health Minister Simon Harris that schools not engage with them.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s latest statement regarding Drinkaware says “ I don’t think the drinks industry should be near schools in respect of anything to do with addiction generally”. Surely Minister Norma Foley should issue a directive banning Drinkaware from all schools. In 2011, we lost our son David to alcohol-related suicide. He was 19. I personally would find it disrespectful to think that an alcohol industry funded charity could speak about alcohol in the school he once attended.

John Higgins

West View

Shanaghy Heights

Ballina

Co Mayo

Budget is nothing but a smokescreen

Smug smiling politicians tell us they will look after us as Budget 2023 is in the bag. One of the principle objectives is to ease the burden and hardship which shortage, sanctions, inflation, and an inevitable economic slowdown brings. Billions will be trickled down to ordinary voters in a desperate attempt to save the skins of very confused, very helpless, and pretty much useless political masters who simply do not understand what the hell is going on.

Padraic Neary

Tubbercurry

Co Sligo