Fergus Finlay: Ireland’s housing mess won’t be fixed by a ‘tsar’ – it needs a minister who shows up

The McDonagh fallout proves ministers are shirking responsibility on housing when they should be driving the system forward

National Asset Management Agency chief Brendan McDonagh. Despite our well-placed scepticism about Nama, it played a big part in managing Ireland's intolerable debt and so aiding confidence and recovery. Picture: Leah Farrell/RollingNews

The Brendan McDonagh affair is a disaster, plain and simple. It involved him in a lot of controversy simply because he was asked to do a job that the Government needed doing. And he is a man who has a high and honourable reputation, both at home and abroad, because of the job he does now and the way he does it. So it was doubly unfair to, if you’ll pardon the expression, dump him in the muck the way it was done.

In case you’re wondering, I wouldn’t know Brendan McDonagh if I met him in the street. I’ve never met him nor spoken to him, to the best of my knowledge. All I know about him is a track record where he can, hand on heart, claim to have served his country well.