Government's new housing role 'a very expensive job share' 

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the €430,000 salary is a 'slap in the face' to many workers struggling with high rents and the cost of living

Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the coalition has signed off on the establishment of the housing activation office but "no decision" has been made as to who will head it up. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

The Government's new €430,000 housing tsar has been described as a "very expensive job share" with the Housing Minister.

Members of the opposition have strongly condemned the "extravagant, gold-plated salary" being mooted for the head of a new Strategic Housing Activation Office.

Brendan McDonagh, the current chief executive of the National Assets Management Agency (Nama), is likely be appointed as the head of the new office and would remain on his current salary.

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said the €430,000 salary — which Mr McDonagh is currently on — would be "an astonishing amount of taxpayers' money for the salary of just one person" in the new role.

She told the Dáil: "It is more than the Taoiseach's very generous salary. 

It is even more than the president of the United States is paid. It is equivalent to the starting salary of 11 new nurses, 11 new gardaí, or 13 new special needs assistants.

She added that this is a "slap in the face" to many workers struggling with high rents and the cost of living.

"What is to be the role of this new highly paid tsar? From what we have heard, he will focus on removing roadblocks to housing construction, to getting houses built more quickly and to speeding up housing delivery. 

"In other words, he will take on the main responsibilities of the Minister for Housing. It is a very expensive job share. It is clear the Taoiseach's Government has no confidence in the ability of the minister, Deputy James Browne, to do his job."

Responding, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the coalition has signed off on the establishment of the housing activation office but "no decision" has been made as to who will head it up.

"The person will be seconded from within the public service. That is the intention. That basically means there will be no additional cost in salary," Mr Martin said.

Taking aim at Sinn Féin, the Taoiseach said the party's policies are "demonstrably anti-first-time buyer and there has been quite a significant drawdown of them — up to 120,000 first-time buyer mortgages have been drawn down over the last number of years."

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

Social Democrats acting leader Cian O'Callaghan said the Government's "big idea" is "another gimmick, involving hiring a housing tsar."

"The head of Nama, which oversaw the fire sale of thousands of homes and billions of euro of development land, is being headhunted," he told the Dáil.

Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said in appointing a new housing tsar the coalition is simply "outsourcing" the housing crisis.

The Government is looking to put space between itself and the housing crisis. 

"It is looking for a mudguard to deflect attention from its actions on the housing crisis. It is another effort to outsource what should be the competency of the minister."

Later there were testy exchanges in the Dáil when the Taoiseach accused Social Democrats TDs Rory Hearne of constantly "coming forward with facile and superficial analysis of the housing crisis".

"You set yourself up as a housing expert. You are nothing of the sort," Mr Martin said of the former Maynooth University academic.

Mr Hearne responded, stating: "That is not true, actually. You can take that back."