Threatening landlords with jail won’t fix housing crisis
LANDLORDS are set to face fines of €15,000 and jail terms if a new Bill proposed by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy is passed.
I am struggling to see how this will help solve the housing crisis. All I can see is a minister who cannot deliver the goods – that is, housing stock – and is trying to deflect the attention away from Government.
Other than the vulture landlord cartels who appeared when the country was dying and bought up housing stock at 20% of its value, let’s remember the sweet deal that the vultures got.
There is a reluctance to become a landlord and I’m sure if this Bill is passed we will see landlords selling up and passing responsibility back to the Housing Minister.
We did not have a rental problem until after the vultures arrived. It was they who hiked up the rents. Why can’t the Government learn from its mistakes? Just look at the havoc it caused when it closed down the bedsits.
Threatening landlords with jail will cost the State a lot more than it bargained for. With a rising market, there has never been a better time for the landlords to sell up – and who can blame them?
Murphy should look at his title ‘Minister for Housing’ and get on with building homes for people, not investments for cartels.
Name and address with editor.
A mother’s love...
I HAVE always admired, through personal observation and through anecdotal evidence, the extraordinary calibre of mothers.
How often have I seen their selfless dedication to the welfare of their children. How often has the mother supported her child when all others may have abandoned the effort. Indeed she will fight to the death to save her offspring. Surely there is no greater, no purer, human love than that of a mother for her child.
We all have a soft spot in our hearts for the weak and vulnerable in society. Who is more dependent and more in need of protection than the child in the womb?
Even if a mother feels that her baby is a burden, I do not believe that she can honestly find it in her maternal heart to extinguish that innocent life. I think that it is in her very nature to safeguard and nurture her infant, albeit, at times, in traumatic circumstances. Even in the case of ‘incompatibility with life’ at birth, I am sure that a mother really desires to hold that fragile, fading life in her arms and lay it to rest with dignity where she can mourn its passing in a peaceful and guiltless manner. Surely this is the true and wonderful approach of motherhood.
In conclusion, I wish to fully acknowledge the anguish a mother can experience when faced with a crisis pregnancy or with postabortion malaise, and to assure her that help and healing is available from many quarters. TERENCE FLANAGAN,
Co. Mayo.
Abortion posters
I NOTE many complaints objecting to posters suggesting abortion may be available up to six months of pregnancy should the Eighth Amendment be repealed. It is possible, indeed probable, because of the unique situation of the Irish Constitution, that abortion may be available into the ninth month of pregnancy or until the very moment of birth.
No law can be enacted by an Irish Government which is in conflict with the Constitution, and it is very arguable that any law restricting or refusing abortion can be construed as ‘conferring right to life’ on the unborn in contravention of the recent judgment of the Supreme Court.
I have raised this question in letters to newspapers and in numerous emails to politicians including the Taoiseach, Minister for Health, other ministers, the leader of the opposition, AG and a substantial number of TDs without receiving any answer whatsoever.
The media has been similarly unresponsive despite, to the best of my knowledge, possible Constitutional preclusion of law regulating abortion not being discussed, debated or even mentioned.
It is an extremely important aspect of the forthcoming referendum which should be resolved without any doubt or ambiguity before the vote is cast.
PADRAIC NEARY, Co. Sligo.