Madam, - If the new guidelines on rural housing produce anything like the wave of new one-off houses that some are predicting, the implications for Ireland's scenic heritage are dire.
The existing guidelines cater for the vast majority of houses for which there is any real local need. Even so, I have already started to avoid making trips to parts of Wicklow and the west for fear of what I will see being done to scenic areas by poor planning.
What Dick Roche and others do not seem to realise is that the countryside is part of my heritage, as an urban Irish citizen, as well as that of rural dwellers. But I can do nothing but watch in impotent rage as my visual heritage is squandered.
An Taisce has been vilified for its sterling work in defending our heritage. As an on/off member in Dublin, I have one criticism of the organisation. It is that members can get involved in their local areas (in my case, Dublin city) but have no input into what happening in other areas.
I think we urgently need a council for the protection of rural Ireland to counter the destructive power of the rural builders' lobby. - Yours, etc.,
RICHARD BARRETT, Upper Rathmines Road, Dublin 6.
Madam, - Ireland's so-called spatial strategy is being smothered by the unplanned sprawl outwards from Dublin into most of Leinster and by wildcat one-off housing in every rural county, now facilitated by Dick Roche. So who benefits when plans are given no teeth or made into anti-plans? Who benefits when development occurs, not where plans say it should (primarily in existing settlements outside Greater Dublin), but where anti-planning lobbyists shout the loudest - Meath, Wicklow, Kildare and the rural countryside?
The answer, of course, are the landowners who can turn fields of green into fields of gold by a few donations and a few phone calls.
And who loses? Everyone stuck in a traffic jam, everyone whose quality of life is bad because of poor facilities. In short, everyone else. - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL SMITH, Upper Ormond Quay, Dublin 7.
Madam, - So new rules are being rushed in to facilitate one-off housing in the countryside. We are told this is only fair if people from the country want to live in their home place.
So when is this Government led by the Progressive Democrats going to appease all those frustrated Dubliners who have to live outside Dublin because they can't afford a house to raise a family there?
When this Government came to power eight years ago, it lost no time bringing in higher density guidelines. These say that developments in mature areas such as Drumcondra should have a design connection with the built environment. They seldom do.
That's the problem with guidelines - they are usually a joke.
It is sickening to hear Fine Gael falling in with this change. Is it any wonder people give up voting? - Yours, etc.,
KATHRYN MULREADY, Calderwood Road, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.