Brendan McDonagh withdraws from housing ‘tsar’ role consideration

Brendan McDonagh has withdrawn his name from consideration to become Ireland’s housing “tsar” following criticism.

The announcement came after sharp questioning of a mooted 430,000 euro salary to become chief executive of the Government’s new housing activation office.

Earlier, Tanaiste Simon Harris said the housing delivery unit was approved by Cabinet this week, but the Government had made no decision on personnel or their salaries.

The Government had been expected to appoint Mr McDonagh, chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), to lead the new unit.

It has been reported in recent weeks that he could be seconded into the role and retain his Nama salary of about 430,000 euros.

This put pressure on the Government over both its housing strategy and perceived use of public funds, particularly from the opposition, who questioned the “gold-plated” salary.

On Thursday a spokeswoman for Housing Minister James Browne said Mr McDonagh was withdrawing his name but he was “honoured to have been approached”.

“In light of the controversy that has arisen about the role, he has withdrawn himself from consideration. He wishes the new office every success.”

Following a meeting of the Cabinet sub-committee on housing, Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Tanaiste Simon Harris and Mr Browne released a joint statement.

“Housing is the greatest challenge the country faces. The Government is determined to tackle this issue,” it said.

“The Government has established a new Housing Activation Office to break down silos and drive delivery of housing.

“Minister James Browne will now progress setting up the Housing Activation Office and report back to the next Cabinet Committee on Housing following consultation with party leaders on all aspects.”

In the wake of Mr McDonagh’s withdrawal, Labour housing spokesperson Conor Sheehan accused Mr Browne of “utter incompetence from the get go”.

He said the position needs to be advertised with a job description and a salary and said that the way in which the new housing unit was being set up was “no way to run a country”.

“The manner in which this nixer was attempted to be rammed through by Fianna Fail beggars belief,” he said.

Speaking in the Dail earlier, Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty said it was “embarrassing” that the Government was prepared to pay someone half a million euros to take on the Housing Minister’s duties.

“Four hundred and thirty thousand euro, that’s the off-the-wall salary that your Government is planning to pay the new housing tsar to come in and basically job share with the Housing Minister James Browne,” Mr Doherty said during Leaders’ Questions on Thursday.

He said Mr Browne himself had described the role of “the housing tsar” as being responsible for rapid responses and “unlocking” housing delivery with the help of experts.

“Tanaiste, does the Housing Minister not realise that that’s his job that he’s describing? That’s his actual job. It’s farcical stuff.”

He told the Dail that claims that the “mad-cap”, “gold-plated” salary would not cost additional public funds, as Mr McDonagh is being seconded from Nama, “appears not to be true”.

He said that as Nama is to be wound down this year, Mr McDonagh is to return to the NTMA, from which he was seconded, “at a significantly reduced salary”.

The Tanaiste said one of the key issues with housing construction was “silos” between sectors.

The Cabinet sub-committee on housing is due to meet on Thursday and a new housing plan is due by the summer recess, Mr Harris said.

He said the Housing Commission said that a housing delivery oversight executive was “essential to address the systemic reset required” in the housing sector.

The Commission’s report said this body would “be legislatively empowered to remove obstacles to housing delivery and would drive co-ordination across legislation, regulation and administrative practices”.

Mr Harris also said he was “surprised” at Sinn Fein’s opposition to the suggestion because its election manifesto proposed an office that would do “exactly what we now want to do”.

Mr Doherty interrupted to say “no housing tsar”, to which Mr Harris said “there’s no housing tsar for us either”, which prompted laughter from the Sinn Fein benches.

“We haven’t made any decisions in relation to personnel or pay. No decisions at all, and let me say this – process matters in relation to all of those issues.

“The overriding objective won’t be personality. The overriding objective will be getting the job done.”

Mr Doherty said “who are you trying to fool” by claiming there is “no housing tsar in our plan”.

“The idea that you’re blindsided in relation to this is just nonsense. You are proposing a housing tsar, you are proposing a salary of 430,000 euro. That’s what was on the table, on the cards here.”

Mr Harris replied that the housing minister brought forward a proposal to the cabinet to begin setting up an office “to break down silos in relation to housing.

“The only decision the Government of Ireland took this week was in relation to that.

“Now that the Government of Ireland has done that, we will now decide how best to populate the office, process matters, I want to understand the processes followed in relation to key personnel, and then we will address all of those matters and put this together.

“Of course, people who do a job will be paid a salary, but this isn’t about personalities.”

Labour leader Ivana Bacik called the role a “housing tsar with a Russian oligarch price tag” and “a fixer in chief”.

“It’s interesting to hear you and Fine Gael colleagues distancing yourselves from this and indeed, I think people will be glad to hear that you’ve just said no decision has been made yet on how to populate this new office,” she said.