Letters to the Editor: Instead of a new-build frenzy, bring our derelict buildings back into use

Renovating derelict buildings 'would go a long way to solving the housing crisis without the need to build a single new house and help rejuvenate and repopulate our many smaller towns and villages'

A photo from last year showing boarded-up shops in the Market Place Shopping Centre in Clonmel. Letter writer Nick Folley suggests more buildings should be brought back into use. Picture: Dan Linehan

Tánaiste Micheál Martin says the Government needs to build 60,000 homes a year. That translates as 600,000 homes in 10 years if fulfilled, effectively almost a Dublin-sized city scattered out across the country. How does this sit with other aims of the government, such as the ‘rewilding’ of Ireland or climate change controls?

Every house built means that much less grass, flowers, trees and space for our wildlife, is gone for good. Not just the space occupied by the house itself but by all the ancillary works too — roads, kerbs, sewage, the mature trees that will be knocked and probably replaced with non-native species that will take generations to reach the same maturity and provide the same level of sustenance to our fauna, the light pollution from windows and street lamps that wreaks havoc on our bird population and their nesting habits and makes clear night skies almost impossible.