'I'm in charge', says Browne amid claims he's lost reins over his top civil servants
Embattled Housing Minister James Browne has moved to assert his authority over his department and most senior civil servant, declaring: 'I am in charge of this brief.'
He told Extra.ie: 'Let me be clear; policy decisions are made by the minister. I lead, decide, and I am held to account for that.'
Mr Browne spoke out after the secretary general of his own department publicly said there is no need for a housing 'tsar' to help the Government meet its pre-election promise to build 300,000 new homes over the next five years. Minister for Housing, James Browne. Pic: Colin Keegan, Collins Dublin
Speaking at a Property Industry Ireland conference, Graham Doyle said: 'We do not need a housing tsar – can I just clear this one up please, once and for all?
'There is a sense in some quarters that if you knock a few heads together, if you give enough people a kick in the backside, then things happen. I only wish that was the case.'
Mr Doyle's comments sparked a political backlash, with one minister criticising what they described as 'an unruly leadership class of senior mandarins who increasingly appear to believe they run the country'. Graham Doyle, Secretary General of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Pic: HSE
The senior civil servant later issued a statement saying his issue was with the use of the term 'tsar', but he is 'fully supportive of the HAO [Housing Activation Office] and wholly supportive of the Minister and what he is trying to achieve in this regard'.
But one senior figure central to the Government's housing strategy told Extra.ie: 'When you are explaining, you are losing, particularly when the explanation is not convincing.'
Another senior Coalition source noted: 'He [Doyle] demolished the Minister's own phraseology word by word and then expects us to believe what he is quoted as saying was not what he was saying. That lacks credibility.' Housing Minister James Browne. Pic: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
They added: 'It represents another blow to the authority of Mr Browne. His top officials are running riot in that department, and he isn't even the referee. He's just a bystander.'
The latest controversy comes after the botched attempt to appoint the €430,000 NAMA boss, Brendan McDonagh, who was Minister Browne's preferred choice to head up the new housing task force.
And concern is also mounting over the political consequences of the difficulties Mr Browne appears to be having within his own department. Brendan McDonagh. Pic: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie
One minister noted of Mr Browne's new housing policy: 'If it is not radical and seen to be radical, public faith in our capacity to solve this crisis will melt away.
'It already is.' Mr Browne's political authority was initially weakened by the strong response of Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers, who warned his colleague's top civil servant that, while he is entitled to his own view, he will have to 'implement what the Government decides'.
This contrasted sharply with Mr Browne's initial, more diplomatic observation that differences between him and Mr Doyle were a matter of 'semantics'. One senior Coalition source noted: 'It certainly raises serious, systemic questions as to who actually is in charge here.
'There is a real contrast between the way [Health Minister] Jennifer Carroll MacNeill cleared the Children's Health Ireland Board – four gone by their own hand – and the chaos in Housing.
They added: 'I don't think a secretary general, even of [Department of Health Secretary General] Robert Watt's status, would be hanging around for long if they started calling out Jennifer.'
Another veteran Government source added: 'He [Browne] lacks authority. If Graham Doyle had behaved in that way to [former finance minister] Charlie McCreevy, he would have been booted out of the department on his return.'
Growing tensions between the Cabinet and senior civil servants have also increased unease about the longevity of the Coalition.
One experienced TD told Extra.ie: 'Governments do not always last for five years.
'The administration Bertie put together in 2007 [a coalition of Fianna Fáil, the Greens, two Progressive Democrats TDs and four Independents] barely managed to survive for three-and-a-half years, and all that kept them together for the last year of that was the IMF coming in.
'There are a lot of similarities between this administration and the 2007 coalition. The mood is very fragile and very dislocated. There is a similar sense of absence of control when it comes to housing, crime, everything really except for health.'
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Irish Times
9 hours ago
- Irish Times
The truth behind the Normans and Ireland: ‘They abolished slavery'
The Government has announced that it intends to participate in an international year in 2027 to celebrate Norman culture and the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror. Minister for Housing James Browne , himself of Norman heritage, said the year will acknowledge the huge impact that the Normans had on Ireland and other parts of Europe . However, Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh described the plans as 'offensive' given the 'legacy of William's successors invading and subjugating Ireland in the name of his English crown'. So who is right and who is wrong? READ MORE The Irish Times sought the views of four experts: Seán Duffy is professor of medieval Irish history in Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Brendan Smith is professor of medieval history at the University of Bristol. Conor Kostick is a historian and the author of Strongbow: The Norman Invasion of Ireland. Sparky Booker is an assistant professor in medieval Irish history at Dublin City University. Should Ireland participate in such celebrations? Seán Duffy: Yes, of course. Celebrating Norman culture – its scholars, architects and artists, the intellectual curiosity that gave rise to the medieval universities – is not the same as celebrating the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland and, contrary to what Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh has implied, nobody is proposing to do that. What is proposed is that the Norman cultural achievement be marked in 2027 in those parts of Europe which experienced it, in the same way that we value the achievement of ancient Greece or Rome, of Charlemagne and his Carolingian empire, or of Renaissance Florence under the Medici. Brendan Smith: It is a bit of a stretch. Ireland-Normandy contacts by the time Ireland was invaded in 1169 were slight. 'Norman culture' is a tricky concept. The culture the Normans invigorated and exported everywhere from Palestine to Pembrokeshire was French. There wasn't much that was specifically 'Norman' about it. A re-enactment of the Battle of Hastings in which, on October 14th, 1066, William the Conqueror's Norman-French forces defeated an English army, beginning the Norman conquest of England. The 'Normans' arrived in Ireland in 1169. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire Conor Kostick: No [to celebrating William]. The guide to answering this question is in his name, William the Bastard, as he was known until he crushed his opponents. Should we celebrate Ireland's Norman heritage? Definitely. As with every period of settlement in Ireland – for example, the Vikings – the people who came here eventually made an important contribution to the development of our country, even if they first came to plunder. To what extent were the Anglo-Normans who arrived in Ireland from 1169 Anglo and/or Norman? Seán Duffy: The simple answer is that – almost without exception – whenever any of the so-called Normans who came to Ireland refer to themselves, they call themselves not Norman but English. What they mean by that is more complicated. They are not referring to what we might call ethnic identity, but rather asserting their political allegiance to the crown of England. The problem with painting everyone with the 'Norman' brush is that many of those who began arriving in Ireland in the late 1160s had probably never set foot in Normandy. [ Art in Focus: Daniel Maclise – The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife Opens in new window ] We don't know for certain because, to our shame, the kind of large-scale research we need to conduct into individual family origins – tracing the background of the Barrys, Costellos, Cusacks, Dillons, Joyces, Keatings, Powers, Purcells, Roches, Tobins and so many others – still hasn't been done. My hope is that one outcome of the Government's commitment to marking the Year of the Normans is that we start to get answers to such questions through detailed scholarly research. Brendan Smith: Some of the early conquerors of Ireland, such as Strongbow, had estates in Normandy as well as in England and Wales, but they were in a minority. All of them, from lord to peasant, regardless of what language they spoke, identified themselves as 'English', by which they meant they were subjects of the king of England and thus entitled to use English common law. The word 'Norman' is almost entirely absent from contemporary accounts of what happened in Ireland between 1169 and 1171. Sparky Booker: The answer to how 'Norman' these 'Anglo-Normans' were ... depends on the moment in time you are asking about as well as what aspect of their culture – language, architecture, law, politics – you focus on. This is one reason that, in my own work as a historian who primarily works on the later period, the 14th and 15th centuries, I use the term 'English of Ireland' rather than 'Anglo-Norman'. Were the Normans who arrived in Ireland civilisers, conquerors or both? Seán Duffy: One would be hard-pressed to demonstrate a single instance of the 'civilising' effects of the invasion because it was not about bringing civilisation, whatever its advocates at the time or since have averred. Brendan Smith: The invaders certainly portrayed themselves as bringing civilisation to a barbarian country. The papacy reinforced this message by praising King Henry II – who had only recently brought about the murder of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury – for bringing true Christianity to a people who, in religious terms, had lost their way. Conor Kostick : Both. The Normans were warriors who used their advantage in military technique to muscle their way to control of southern Italy, Sicily, Antioch, England, much of Wales, and – the last of their conquests – the east of Ireland. They wanted control of the wealth being created by land and trade and, having got it, were very eager to consolidate by becoming respectable members of the culture they had invaded. They were quick to marry into the local community, to secure religious approval via donations to the church, to appoint talented locals as administrators, to use local architectural styles. Those who lost out when the Normans arrived in any region were the local elites, who were killed and replaced. Those who benefited were everyone else. This was very evident in Ireland where the poorest people in 1169 were slaves. Slavery was rampant in Ireland. The Normans abolished slavery. Not that they were in favour of human rights. The Normans had learned that to farm grain efficiently it was better to use serfs, who kept a share of the crop and therefore had an incentive to improve the yields, than slaves. Sparky Booker: Rather than either or both, I would say that neither civiliser nor conqueror is the best term for the Anglo-Normans. Military activity was indeed a key part of Anglo-Norman activity in Ireland in 1169 and for centuries afterwards, but their conquest of Ireland was never completed in the medieval period and Irish lords maintained control over significant areas of the island. Is it the case that the English get all the blame for the '800 years of oppression' and the Normans get none? Seán Duffy: This is a classic example of our failure as a nation to dig deep into this invented past we have created. It entrenches a kind of nonsense. It was only in the 19th century that we began calling the invaders Normans – for two reasons, I think. One is the extraordinary popularity of Sir Walter Scott's novel Ivanhoe (1819) which practically invented the myth of the Normans and made the Normans 'sexy'. The second reason is less benign and had to do with Anglo-Irish relations. In the 1840s, Daniel O'Connell became the first Irish nationalist leader to begin to repeat the refrain of 700 years of English oppression and it has remained a powerful message. In his statement on the Government plans to mark the Year of the Normans, Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh, no mathematician, referred to '900 years of occupation'. [ The Irish Times view on Sinn Féin vs the Normans: a cartoonish version of history Opens in new window ] And one way in which unionist historians, from the late 19th century onwards, could subvert this nationalist axiom was to implant the idea that for the first half of this 700 years the newcomers were not English but French-speaking Normans. The reality is that – whatever their direct or indirect links to the actual Normans of Normandy – most of those who settled in Ireland after 1169 came either from England or Anglo-Norman settlements in Wales. Brendan Smith: Not a Norman in sight in Ireland in 1169, so the fashion for calling the invaders 'Normans' really reflects something else. Study of the past in Ireland and elsewhere became more professionalised in the late 19th century, and that's when 'the Normans' really take off in how Irish people thought about what had had happened in 1169. It avoided a whole range of sensitive issues to call the invaders 'Normans' rather than call them what they called themselves: 'English.' If the Irish Government arranged a 'celebration of 850 years of English culture in Ireland' in 2019 it escaped my attention. Conor Costick: The oppression of Ireland by England really begins to accelerate when England becomes economically more powerful from the end of the 16th century. Back in 1169 we are looking more at a game of thrones between medieval kings and lords, rather than one nation trying to subjugate another into its economic growth. So I wouldn't blame the Normans for English imperialism. After all, the Normans conquered England as well. What do you feel about the statement made by Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó'Snodaigh that King Charles III is in a line of English kings going back to William the Conqueror? Seán Duffy: I am not remotely persuaded by Deputy Ó Snodaigh's argument that we should ignore the Year of the Normans 'with the North still under the descendants of William the Conqueror's crown'. As of now, for good or ill there exists in these islands an entity whose official name is the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. No organ of this State denies that the 'Normans' came to Ireland as conquerors. But as with Ireland's extraordinarily mature and successful commemorations during the Decade of Centenaries, we can use the 2027 millennium to see where Ireland fits into the Norman world. Conor Kostick: In essence, I don't think this is correct. It gives the impression that Strongbow's invasion was the foundation for later imperial conquest, settlement and occupation of Ireland. But it was a different era and the victorious Normans weren't in Ireland to send wealth to the kingdom of England. They had come to stay.
Irish Times
a day ago
- Irish Times
Letters to the Editor, June 2nd: On PhD students, Israel and Pine Martens
Sir, – Advising potential US PhD students not to come to Ireland is perhaps an understandable reaction from students who have not been able to secure adequate funding for ever-increasing costs of living ( 'As PhD researchers this is our advice: avoid Ireland', Opinion, May 29th) . The article, however, contains a number of inaccuracies and omissions about the general conditions of Ireland's postgraduate research students. A PhD is the highest academic award a university can grant to a student. It comes with rigorous quality control and assessment. The sense of achievement on graduation is enormous, as are the benefits to the PhD graduate. Embarking on the (four-year plus) journey to obtain a PhD qualification is a very individual choice. Our supports for PhD students undoubtedly need to improve, but they are among the best in Europe and are far better than those on offer in most US universities, where many 'funded' students pay fees or work long hours as graduate teaching assistants. The four years is also an investment long term in their individual earning potential. As the recent HEA report on graduate outcomes has demonstrated, a PhD graduate is earning €815 per week compared with the €655 being earned by a graduate with a master's degree. The recent decision by Government and the main funding agencies to increase the PhD stipend to €25,000 per annum was welcome. All universities campaigned for this increase. We need to go further in increasing this base level – on that we all agree. READ MORE However, a direct comparison with the minimum and living-wage levels does not provide the full picture. PhD students do not pay tax or PRSI, unlike minimum wage workers. In addition, almost every student on the €25,000 stipend also has their tuition fees paid, at a further cost of between €5,000 and €13,000 each year – again a financial support not available to minimum wage workers. Dublin City University has moved all of our internally funded PhD students on to this new rate of €25,000, plus fees. This was done without additional Government support – at a significant cost to the university, but it is the right thing to do. The opinion piece suggests that universities seek to attract non-EU research students in order to raise income. Non-EU full-time research students are overwhelmingly on scholarships, where the higher rate of non-EU fee is paid by the research funder or the university, and they do not add significantly to university incomes. All of the universities have argued that the additional costs for those students, including visa fees, should be covered by funders. Furthermore, universities do not make a profit from PhD-based research. That research is significantly subsidised from other activity and through fundraising. Universities are also accused of acting like businesses in 'balancing the books'. The Universities Act sets out an obligation in law for each university to run a balanced budget. There are very significant consequences if this is not achieved. Despite the claim that 'many' of our universities are running financial surpluses, even the Government accepts that there is €307 million annual shortfall in public funding. In the absence of that funding being provided by government, universities have no choice but to seek to raise funds in all sorts of ways – including from business. Seeking external research funding is a key objective for all research-intensive universities. With regards to the profits made by DCU on-campus accommodation, our on-campus accommodation makes a significant portion of its revenue during the summer months when we charge full commercial rates to conference attendees and visitors to Dublin. Income from this period goes straight back into the university to help DCU to keep student accommodation rents as affordable as possible for students and their families. We need to properly fund our PhD students, including the additional costs of visas for international students, as well as increases to the basic stipend. To do that we need a properly funded public university system, and a wider research and innovation ecosystem. That is more urgent than ever in the current geopolitical uncertainty. Education, research and innovation have been at the heart of Ireland's social transformation, and will need to be again, as we adapt to the current turmoil. – Yours, etc, PROF JOHN DOYLE, Vice-president for Research, PROF SHARON O'BRIEN, Dean of Graduate Studies, Dublin City University Dublin 9. Squirrel spotting Sir, – Frank McNally's mentioned the common grey squirrel in a recent Irishman's Diary (Friday, May 30th). As luck would have it, only a day previously, I was fortunate enough to espy the lesser-spotted red variety scaling a tree in a wooded area in the Farnham Estate in Co Cavan. Moments later, a pine marten crossed my path at speed before disappearing into the undergrowth. A local woman to whom I recounted this wildlife encounter opined that the noticeable proliferation of red squirrels in the area was almost suggestive of a veritable truce having been declared between the two species. This state of affairs, she suggested, might be directly related to a corresponding reduction in the numbers of the once-thriving grey variety in the locality. Pine martens, she believes, are now content to ignore the agile red variety and instead concentrate their predatory instincts on their slightly larger and perhaps less athletic grey cousins. – Yours, etc, KIERAN FLYNN, Ballinasloe, Co Galway. Death and Gaza Sir, – As a proud Irish citizen of the European Union, I fear trust in the institutions of government have been irrevocably damaged if not completely eroded over the lack of sanction (or indeed any tangible action) from the EU on Israel's war in Gaza. The elephant in the room is that the EU has put US trade relations way above our human rights obligations as a block. Russia could be immediately sanctioned (rightly so) yet the dithering and feeble posturing over Palestinian slaughter has been embarrassing, infuriating and inhumane. This is not an EU of equals if Germany and Austria, with a few others, get to dictate our response to plausible genocide. Were we wrong to pass Nice and Lisbon treaties (albeit reluctantly) and dilute our voice in Europe? Have we left the warmongers in charge once more. Has business become our master in chief once and for all? I am a citizen, not a 'consumer'. I live in a country not a 'market'. I respect human life and dignity. Why have the citizens not been heeded? Why should we respect or participate in EU institutions any further when it was all fine words about culture, but in reality nothing more than an offshoot of multinational capitalist enterprise? – Yours, etc, SEAMUS HUGHES, Galway. Sir, – As a citizen of the EU, I would like to know what number of dead we in the Republic should expect to endure if we were being attacked by an outside state before we could anticipate that other countries would intervene to help us with actual action. It seems that we could look forward to at least 122 000 deaths (adjusting the current death-toll in Gaza for Irish population statistics). Just for context, in 2024 there were around 34,800 deaths registered here. Not that we need ever worry about being abandoned by the moral countries of the world; their recent track record inspires such confidence and pride. We would never be considered to have deserved such a fate though – we are, after all, far more human than the Palestinians. – Yours, etc, MARY MORAN, Shannon, Co Clare. Respecting the national anthem Sir, – I wish to fully endorse Kevin O'Regan's letter on the national anthem (Letters, May 29th) and fully support his suggestion of the introduction of a mandatory two-minute pause between the end of the anthem and the start of play in intercounty GAA games. I have noticed in recent years, especially at intercounty GAA games, a lack of respect for our national anthem. Some players do not stand to attention, and others break away from formation before the completion of the anthem. At a recent match I attended, the singer clearly didn't know the words, some players didn't even bother to stand to attention, and all players were breaking formation long before the anthem was finished. I understand players are anxious to get on with the game, but is one or two minutes going to make any difference to the starting? Gaelic games are our national games being watched worldwide, our national anthem deserves respect. – Yours, etc, VINCENT CARROLL, Dublin. Sir, – I wholeheartedly agree with your correspondent Kevin O'Regan on the apparent disregard for our national anthem within the GAA. It is a source of annoyance to see these players performing box-jumps and warming up during the anthem and not one of them actually reciting the words. I have long held the view that it should be compulsory for the players to sing the anthem and stand still to show respect. Compared to Six Nations rugby and the pride and passion the players show for their anthems, the GAA should hang their heads in shame. – Yours, etc, MARY LEE, Newbridge, Co Kildare. Sir, – The suggested mandatory two-minute pause between the end of Amhrán na bhFiann and the start of play at GAA matches would not be welcomed by corner forwards. – Yours, etc, LOMAN Ó LOINGSIGH, Kiltipper Road, Dublin 24. Climate change and fines Sir, – Ireland generates less than 0.1 per cent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. We are facing potential fines of up to €20-30 billion if climate targets are not reached by the end of the decade. Will the same penalties be proportionately applied to the world's biggest polluters, namely China, India, the United States and Brazil? If so, then their economies will justifiably collapse. A level playing field must surely apply. – Yours, etc, JOHN BURNETT, Co Cork. Cycling days gone by Sir, – I am sure readers of my vintage can recall the centre of Dublin, in places like College Green, being full of bicycles, riding several abreast. I'll wager not one of those riders considered him or herself a 'cyclist,' or had ever read a cycling magazine. The bicycle was transport, unless you were fairly well to do. Now, almost all bikes are ridden by enthusiasts. Having paid up to several thousand euro or pounds for their machines, and a tidy sum for helmets, clothing and accessories, they become members of a sort of parallel society, with its own rules and conventions – one of which seems to have a flagrant disregard for traffic lights and pedestrian crossings. I instinctively dislike extra laws and compulsion, but I feel it would be no bad thing if, as in some other countries, bicycles were registered and displayed a number plate. Where to mount it on some modern machines is another question. – Yours, etc, PAUL GRIFFIN, Liverpool.
Irish Examiner
a day ago
- Irish Examiner
Government 'going backwards' as 42 bodies not covered by ethics legislation
The Government has been accused of "going backwards" after it was revealed that 42 public bodies are not covered by ethics legislation more than two years after a review into the issue. An update of the ethics in public office legislation was promised in the programme for government in 2020 but while a review was completed in December 2022, a bill has not been brought forward. Social Democrats deputy leader Cian O'Callaghan said the Government has no interest in undertaking reforms to strengthen legislation and has instead been giving it the "run-around" for years. In 2023, the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) identified 42 public bodies that are outside of its remit, as regulations have not been updated since 2018. "Why on earth would you want some public bodies to be covered by ethics legislation and then have 42 other ones not to be? It just does not make sense," said Mr O'Callaghan. "It is setting themselves up for trouble and will cause hassle down the road. Something is going to go wrong; there is going to be a scandal in one of those 42 bodies and the Opposition are going to be on the record hammering them on why they aren't doing this. Mr O'Callaghan noted that then-minister for public expenditure Paschal Donohoe told the Dáil last year that "we are nearly done in respect of the drafting of the heads of the Bill and I hope to be in a position to bring that to Government shortly". He said the Government appears to be going backwards as the current minister, Jack Chambers, is now saying there is more work to be done and more consideration to be given. "The review by his department was concluded more than two years ago. Some of these issues have been going on for years," said Mr O'Callaghan. "How can the minister stand over that? Will he not deal with this urgently? And how is it that he is way behind where his colleague, Deputy Donohoe, was a year ago?" Jack Chambers said it is not possible at this stage to provide a specific date for publication of the scheme. Picture: Sam Boal/Collins Photos Mr Chambers said he is committed to bringing forward a general scheme but it is a complex area and there are broader operational and policy considerations to explore. "My ultimate goal is to create a fit-for-purpose and easy-to-understand ethical framework that contributes to the quality, efficacy, and transparency of our system and positively builds on the strength of our existing framework," said Mr Chambers. He said that the respective policy considerations and decision points need to be made but it is not possible at this stage to provide a specific date for when the scheme might be published. However, Mr O'Callaghan said the legislation is clearly not a priority for the Government. "Every single year, it feels like at a ministerial level and also at a department level, they are not bothered about it. It just is not a priority for them at all." Mr Chambers is the third minister for public expenditure involved since the review was first announced by Michael McGrath in 2021. At the time, Mr McGrath said he intended to bring forward proposals for legislative reform in 2022. Read More Motorcyclist dies weeks after crash that killed Garda Kevin Flatley
