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LAST UPDATE | 29 Apr
TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN was quizzed in the Dáil today about the creation of the new ‘housing tsar’ role and accused of “cooking the books” in relation to the delivery of affordable housing last year.
The Dáil returned today after its two-week Easter break, and much of the focus during Leaders’ Questions was on housing.
Today, the Housing Minister James Browne announced the creation of a new ‘Housing Activation Office’.
The office will be responsible for “addressing barriers” to the delivery of housing.
It will be headed up by a CEO, a role which has been informally dubbed a ‘housing tsar’ in recent weeks, and will have a staff of approximately ten people.
The creation of the office has been highly criticised by the Opposition, particularly since reports that the Housing Minister’s preferred candidate for the role is likely to retain his existing public sector salary of €430,000.
Speaking on RTÉ News at One earlier today, Minister Browne said the Housing Activation Office is about “getting boots on the ground”.
He said it will be made up of a “small team of experts who are going to go around this country identifying viable sites and seeing why they are not being built on. Is it a zoning issue? Is it a utilities issue? Is it a roads issue, and being able to unlock those.”
In the Dáil, after a minute’s silence to mark the death of Pope Francis, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald asked the Taoiseach about the “very expensive job-share” that is being proposed by the creation of the new housing tsar who will work alongside Housing Minister James Browne.
It is understood that Brendan McDonagh, who is the chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency, will retain his existing €430,000 salary, along with benefits, when he takes up the new role in the Department of Housing.
The government has argued that the ‘housing tsar’ role and the new Housing Activation Office is needed to “take a hands on approach to particularly large projects” and to “get things moving where there may be barriers to big projects and big programmes”.
Asked to confirm the salary attached to the position today, the Taoiseach said no decision has yet been made on who will head up the new housing office, but that the person who does get the role will be seconded from within the public service.
“Which basically means there will be no additional cost in salary or whatever, to housing or to anybody for that matter in terms of secondment within the public service,” the Taoiseach said.
In response, McDonald said she “does not care where they are seconded from” and asked how he could stand over such a salary.
“More importantly, why are you double-jobbing your Minister for Housing? You have a full cabinet minister for housing, why is it that you have so little confidence?,” she asked.
A spokesperson for the government has since confirmed that the CEO appointment will be discussed by the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and Minister for Housing later this week during Thursday’s Cabinet sub-committee on housing.
Social Democrats acting leader Cian O’Callaghan also raised the issue of housing during Leaders’ Questions, focusing on the missed social housing targets for last year.
O’Callaghan accused the government of “cooking the books” when it came to the delivery of affordable housing last year.
The government met its target for affordable housing but its social housing delivery fell short of its goal of 12,930. It means that the delivery of social homes was just over 18% below the target.
O’Callaghan claimed the government had, in reality, missed the affordable housing targets last year too because it inflated the figures by including take-up of vacancy grants in the statistics.
He said the inclusion of the use of vacancy grants in the affordable housing figures is “fooling no one”.
In response, the Taoiseach said O’Callaghan was “very dismissive of the vacancy grants” which he said have been a “huge addition to make houses affordable for God’s sake”.
“You talk to anybody who availed of some of those grants, they are incredibly substantial. So are the grants for dereliction if you buy a derelict house and refurbish it, I mean that makes it affordable,” the Taoiseach said.
The government had a target of 6,400 affordable homes last year, and the figures released last week show it delivered 7,126.
However, when you exclude the 1,349 properties that availed of the vacant property grant, the total number of affordable homes delivered was 5,777, a shortfall of 623 affordable homes.
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