Suggested €430,000 salary for new housing chief ‘beggars belief’ – McDonald

By David Young, PA

A mooted salary of 430,000 euro for the chief of the Government’s new housing delivery unit “truly beggars belief”, Mary Lou McDonald has said.

The Sinn Féin leader said the suggested renumeration for the head of the Housing Activation Office was a “slap in the face” for working people struggling amid Ireland’s housing crisis.

In response, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said while the Government had agreed on Tuesday to establish the office, he insisted no final decisions had been made in respect of who will head it up.

Ms McDonald raised the issue during Leaders’ Questions after weekend reports that the Government was lining up the chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency, Brendan McDonagh, to lead the new unit.

It was reported that he could be seconded into the role and retain his Nama salary of around €430,000.

The Sinn Féin president questioned the need for what she described as a “housing tsar”, insisting the job description was essentially what Housing Minister James Browne should already be doing.

Ms McDonald said €430,000 would represent an “outrageous salary”.

“It’s more than the Taoiseach’s very generous salary, it’s even more than the president of the United States is paid,” she told the Dáil.

“It’s the starting salary of 11 new nurses, or 11 new gardaí or 13 new special needs assistants.

“And what’s to be the role of this new highly-paid tsar? Well, from what we’ve heard, he will focus on removing roadblocks to housing construction, to getting houses built more quickly, to speeding up housing delivery.

“In other words, the main responsibilities of the Minister for Housing. A very expensive job share.

“Clearly, your Government have no confidence in Minister James Browne to do his job. €430,000 is a slap in the face for working people who are hit with rip-off bill after rip-off bill and who struggle to make it to the end of the week.

“It’s a kick in the teeth for those saving every spare cent desperately trying to put together the deposit for a house. It’s a kick in the teeth for every young person who has been forced to leave this country because they cannot afford a home.

“So how do you justify this extravagant, gold-plated salary to those who are forced to fork out €2,000 on rent every month, to families who wait and wait and wait on council waiting lists for a home?

“How do you justify it to mothers and fathers forced into homelessness, raising their children in hotel rooms or hubs – the appointment of the housing tsar changes nothing for them. That’s the truth.

“This new cushy job is part and parcel of the same broken Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policies that landed us in this mess in the first place. So, as house prices, rents, homelessness all continue to rise, and as your Government misses its inadequate housing targets year after year, your next move, your next big idea, is to appoint another bureaucrat on an eye-watering salary. It truly beggars belief.”

Ms McDonald added: “People already know that your Government is a serial waster of public money, but I have to say this one really takes the biscuit.

“You’ve actually gone to the trouble of making up a job with a salary of 430 grand simply to give the appearance of government action when you’re doing nothing at all except going round and round in circles.

“It’s your clearest ission that this Government has no new idea of substance or any real plan to fix housing.”

Mr Martin rejected Ms McDonald’s criticism of the Government’s delivery on housing.

“I couldn’t disagree more with the deputy in of her critique of government housing policy,” he said.

“The bottom line is that if you look over the last four years, there’s been a very significant step change in the level and scale of housing delivery in this country.”

The Taoiseach said Sinn Féin had “failed in any shape or form” to provide any substance to underpin its own housing policies.

In respect of the new unit, he added: “On the Housing Activation Office, a decision was taken today by government to establish that office.

“No decision has been taken in of who will head up that office, but, to say this much, the person will be seconded from within the public service is an intention, which basically means there will be no additional cost in salary or whatever, to housing, or to anybody for that matter, in of a secondment within the public service.

“That’s the objective. But no decision has been made.”