‘I am not a political person, I did not seek this role' – Nama boss Brendan McDonagh appears before Dáil committee amid housing tsar controversy

Irish Independent

21-05-2025

Mr McDonagh, who is paid €430,000 as CEO of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), said the public was entitled to ask questions, but there had been no discussion with the minister over what his salary would be.
Mr McDonagh told the Oireachtas Committee on Finance that the first time he met with the Housing Minister to discuss the position of chief executive for the new Housing Activation Office was in April.
'I'm not prepared to discuss the details of my contract. My salary is publicly disclosed,' Mr McDonagh said, adding that he had waived an annual bonus every year since his appointment.
He refused to answer questions about his 'personal' affairs, such as reports that he is renting out a house in Cabra for €10,000 a week.
Mr McDonagh insisted, however, that he was making 'all relevant disclosures' as required.
'There does come a point when matters are private, and I reserve my position,' he said.
He said he fully accepted he was 'very well paid', but argued he had returned 'value for money' through a surplus of billions returned to the taxpayer.
Mr McDonagh said he was not a public representative, but had decided not to go forward because 'why would I be kicked around like a political football? I did not seek this role'.
He spoke about the approach to him by Housing Minister James Browne about the job of so-called housing tsar, that was first mediated by the secretary general of the Department of Housing.
'The first time I met the secretary general was on April 10, and we had a general discussion,' he said.
ADVERTISEMENT
'He subsequently called to invite me to meet Minister Browne on April 16, the Wednesday before Easter weekend.
'Minister Browne outlined that's what he wanted the CEO [of the new Housing Activiation Office] to do. And I should add, this was not a role I sought or ever canvassed for. I want to be absolutely clear about that.
'But Mr Browne said: 'Your name has been mentioned in many circles as being somebody who might have appropriate skills to help. Would you be prepared to let me propose your name to the Cabinet sub-committee and the Government?'
'After talking with him, I agreed, and that was my only discussion about the role, which was with Minister Browne.
'I had no other contact with any other members of the political system. On May 1, given there was lots of public controversy about me and the role – I am not a political person, I'm apolitical – I really felt I didn't want to be part of that.
'I'm a professional. I believe I'm a public servant, and I didn't want the story to be all about me. So I advised the minister on May 1 that I really wasn't interested.
"Because, to be honest, everybody who knows me, I'm very straightforward. I made the decision.
'We are all affected by the housing crisis. We all have kids. And I thought I had something to offer.'
The nomination was torpedoed when Tánaiste and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris said he would prefer the name had not emerged in public before Government discussion of it.
He was answering Ged Nash of the Labour Party, who said there was disagreement at the heart of Government about it.
Mr McDonagh said his name had been in the media for a week, and nobody had contacted him, and he was 'really annoyed about it'. He said he didn't know who to call about it.
'I'm a GAA man, so you're playing the man and not the ball. It wasn't to be – so be it, we move on. That's life,' he said.
Mr McDonagh was asked if Mr Browne had apologised. He said he did not like to discuss private conversations.
But he said the minister had said he was sorry that he (McDonagh) felt he had to pull out, and that it had 'not worked out'.
Mr McDonagh was asked by Sinn Féin spokesman Pearse Doherty, if, on April 16, when he met Mr Browne, he had discussed retention of his salary.
He replied: 'No, my salary was never discussed.'
Mr Doherty then queried how Taoiseach Micheál Martin could stand up in the Dáil and say the the appointment would not cost the taxpayer any more than Mr McDonagh was earning at present.
'Was it ever understood that you were retaining your €430,000 salary if you accepted that position?' Mr Doherty asked.
Mr McDonagh replied: "There was no discussion about it. I'm being completely frank with you here.
'My parent body is the NTMA. There's lots of speculation about my salary in the paper, but I can honestly say that there was no discussion about my salary with Minister Browne.
'I will be open and frank with you. There was a lot of speculation in newspapers for a number of weeks, but nobody had discussed anything with me."
'I hate the phrase housing tsar. I never used it.'
Mr McDonagh said Felipe could solve the country's housing problems. The Spanish equivalent of Philip, the acronym Felipe was explained by Mr McDonagh as a check-list towards breaking the housing logjam.
'I developed an acronym called Felipe, and I believe if these issues were resolved, they would go a long way towards helping to unlock the housing problems of the country," Mr McDonagh told TDs and senators.
He explained the individual Felipe letters in turn.
'F stands for finance development. Finance is crucial. It has to be available for developers to build,' he said.
'E is expertise. Expertise is what you need in your trades. You need your carpenters, plumbers and electricians. We don't have enough of them in the country. We are never going to solve the housing crisis by not having those skill sets.
'We all know people who are plumbers and electricians, and like myself, they're getting older, and eventually there's nobody coming behind them. And that's not good.
'L is land. You need land in terms of housing."
'I is infrastructure, and infrastructure is crucially important. Because you can have all the land zoned in a country, but if it doesn't have infrastructure, nothing will happen.
'P is planning and zoning. We've had huge delays in the planning system. We've got sites ourselves (in Nama) that have been in planning for over two years and still haven't come out the other side. Also, in my experience, even if you get planning, the likelihood of it being judicially appealed to An Bord Pleanála and then judicial reviewed is very high. It costs a huge amount of money.
'The final E in Felipe to me is engineering. This includes modern methods of construction. The productivity in the construction sector is one of the lowest across all industries.
'To me, if you solve those six issues, you have gone a long way to towards trying to help resolve the situation.'