Mick Clifford: Housing tsar fiasco shows Government lacks urgency to tackle housing crisis
The lack of urgency has persisted throughout the housing crisis.
Any tsars out there at a loose end? The farrago over the now-abandoned appointment of Brendan McDonagh as housing tsar illustrates more than anything that there is no emergency in the housing crisis.
There is no recognition that this is the issue that could fracture the social contract. No clue that the whole thing has the potential to lead to the rise of the kind of populist politics spreading across the world. There is no urgency.
Within government, the tsar farrago occurred because of silly one-upmanship and political arse boxing. Among the opposition, the mooted appointment was considered primarily as an excellent stick with which to beat the Government. And for those without homes, paying astronomical rents or trying to buy homes, they must be wondering once again whose country it is anyway.
That we need a housing tsar to “kick down doors” at this late stage of the game speaks for itself. It was March 2018 when it was first mooted in the Dáil that we were in an emergency. The taoiseach at the time Leo Varadkar, had no problem in describing the crisis as a “national emergency”. But, he said, making such a declaration won’t speed up the building of houses.
“Yes, it is an emergency,” he told the Dáil, “but declaring it an emergency doesn’t solve the problem.” No, but maybe acting as if it is might go some way towards making inroads.
Not long after that, we know, housing minister Eoghan Murphy had this naive idea that if we were living in an emergency, maybe the country should take some appropriate measures.
Among these, he suggested, was to go along with the folks who wanted to declare a right to housing in the constitution, repurpose Nama as a national house builder and introduce a tax on vacant property. The response he got at the Cabinet was: Emergency, what emergency?
“People didn’t agree with me on declaring a right to housing — because of the potential financial burden that it would put on the State,” he wrote in his memoir
“The idea of repurposing Nama into the nation’s house-builder, an idea that had come from the management of Nama themselves, was seen as too risky, as there were balance sheet and other issues to consider.
“Even one smaller proposal, a tax on vacant property, was seen as too complicated to administer when Revenue was already dealing with extra responsibilities on tax collection.”
Interestingly, the management at Nama referenced was headed up by one Brendan McDonagh. Imagine if, against all their apparent better judgement, Varadkar and his cabinet had considered that repurposing Nama would be an excellent idea. At least tens of thousands more homes would now be available.
The response to the vacant property tax idea was typical of Cabinet reaction when any such measures are suggested that might discommode vested interests. Too complicated. By 2023, when the housing situation had further deteriorated, suddenly the complications disappeared. The tax was finally introduced simply because there was no more road left to run away from it.
The complete lack of urgency to do anything substantial has persisted throughout the crisis. Another move in 2018 to throw a few political morsels at the public was the establishment of the Land Development Agency (LDA). This was designed to identify State land and get it into shape for housing.
It was an excellent idea. With political will driving it, all resistance would be unblocked. If doors weren’t opened in State bodies, they could be kicked down. An emergency demanded no less.
And what happened? Doors remained shut, and there was neither power nor political will to do some kicking. Last week, seven years after the LDA was established, it was reported in the that “State bodies are set to face increased pressure to sell sites to the Land Development Agency”.
Excuse me. Increased pressure? At this stage of the game. What’s been going on for the last seven years as the homeless figures went from 10,000 to 15,000, as the price of a house was pushed further and further beyond reach for most people? Somebody is taking the proverbial.
Another well-thumbed political playbook to delay doing anything is to set up an expert group to examine it. The Housing Commission was established in 2021, and produced a fine report in May of last year. Among its recommendations was the establishment of a “Housing Delivery Oversight Executive with emergency powers underpinned by legislation”. Enter the tsar.
At the time, the consensus was that the housing brief wasn’t big enough for two chiefs. The incumbent minister, Darragh O’Brien, is known as a politician with amazing self-belief and no way would he defer to any tsar. Besides, what’s the hurry?
After the general election, Micheál Martin shifted O’Brien and installed James Browne, a first-time minister thrown in at the deep end. He was in no position to say the brief wasn’t big enough for him and a tsar so finally plans were afoot to bring in the man who would kick down doors.
The man whom Browne — or more likely Martin — proposed was McDonagh. He has nearly 15 years of experience in dealing with developers and others in the industry through Nama. We now know that he wanted to repurpose the bad bank vehicle as a home builder, so he would appear to have an acute awareness of the urgency of the issue.
By any standards, he did a good job at Nama, bringing an end to its life with €5bn in the bank. His experience ensures that wool would not be pulled over his eyes, nor that he would take no for an answer. Doors would tremble at the mere hint of his shadow.
Certainly, the notion of paying any State employee a reported salary of €430,000 is crazy, but he’s already on that wodge and there’s a rumour that we’re living in an emergency which requires extraordinary measures. So what happens?
Martin bruises Simon Harris’s ego by not discussing the whole thing before it becomes public. Government backbenchers fret over the public reaction to such an appointment. The Opposition smells blood and ridicule the whole notion.
After all, if the Government is not serious about being in an emergency, why should the Opposition? Besides, does the Opposition really want housing to be drastically improved under the government’s watch? Inevitably, in the end, McDonagh took a look at the whole farrago and concluded the emergency could manage without him.
Now the whole thing is being hived off to the public appointments process. So all you budding tsars out there, this is your chance. The smart money says there are probably a few figures with sufficient ability, experience, and authority who could fill the role and make a serious impact.
But anybody of that calibre will have looked at what happened to McDonagh, factor in that no new powers come with the office, and conclude that nobody else is taking it seriously, so why should they. That leaves the tsar’s crown as a handy number for anybody looking to join the circus.
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