The Government Just Suggested A €430,000 Salary For The New Housing Tsar
The Government Just Suggested A €430,000 Salary For The New Housing Tsar
Text: Izzy Copestake
It has been described as an “inordinate amount of public money”.
The current CEO of the National Asset Management Agency, Brendan McDonagh, is set to head up the new Strategic Housing Activation Office. However, reports emerged on Sunday suggesting that Mr McDonagh would retain his salary of around €430,000 in the new role, triggering backlash from opposition parties.
“This revelation is especially grotesque given the Government has just announced it will not be proceeding with introducing a living wage or increasing statutory sick leave for average workers,” commented Rory Hearne, Social Democrats housing spokesperson.
Hearne has also pointed out the irony of appointing McDonagh to the role via his Instagram post, describing it as “unacceptable” and accusing the Government of prioritising the interests of institutional investors over ordinary homebuyers.
“You couldn’t make this s**t up,” he wrote on Instagram. “The guy the Government are selecting to ‘fix’ housing is the same guy who sold billions of Irish homes and land to vulture funds. It’s clear once more this Government are focused on ‘fixing’ housing for the vulture fund landlords, not for Generation Locked Out.”
Hearne argued that those chosen to lead Ireland’s housing strategy should “understand social and affordable housing and see it as a human right, not a real estate asset.”
Indeed, NAMA was set up in 2009 to manage distressed property loans following the financial crisis, and has been widely criticised. This is due to its role in selling large portfolios of Irish property and land at discounted prices to international investment firms, often referred to as “vulture funds.” These sales were intended to recover as much value as possible for the Irish taxpayer, but critics continue to argue that they contributed to the current housing crisis by putting significant swathes of the property market into the hands of profit-driven investors, pushing out prospective homebuyers and affordable housing projects.
Labour housing spokesman Conor Sheehan criticised the proposed salary, calling €430,000 an “inordinate amount of public money” for a role whose responsibilities remain unclear. Furthermore, according to reporting in the Irish Times, sources in the construction sector have voiced “strong skepticism” about Mr McDonagh’s potential appointment, suggesting that Nama has been primarily focused on offloading bad debt rather than addressing the need for large-scale housing delivery.
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