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Irish Independent
21-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
‘I am not a political person, I did not seek this role' says Nama boss Brendan McDonagh amid housing tsar controversy
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 National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) over what his salary would be. Mr McDonald told the Oireachtas Committee on Finance that the first time he met with the Minister for Housing 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 (over €40,000 a month). 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. He 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." He added: "I did not seek this role." He spoke about the approach to him by Minister for Housing James Browne about the job of 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 10 April, and we had a general discussion," he said. ADVERTISEMENT Learn more "He subsequently called to invite me to meet Minister Browne on the 16 of April, the Wednesday before Holy Thursday of the Easter weekend. "Minister Brown 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 subcommittee 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 the first of May, 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 1 May 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 as Housing Tsar was torpedoed when Tanaiste 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 ring about it. He added: "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." Mr McDonagh was asked if Mr Browne had apologised. He said he did not like to discuss private conversations. But he said he, 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 Minister Browne, he had discussed retention of his salary. He replied: "No, my salary was never discussed." Mr Doherty then queried how Micheál Martin could stand up in the Dail 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. He answered: "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 Brown. "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." He added: "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. '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. Okay, 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 havn'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." Mr McDonagh concluded the point: "To me, if you solve those six issues, you have gone a long way to towards trying to help resolve the situation."
Irish Independent
11-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
Any Other Business: After waiving €2.7m in bonuses, does Brendan McDonagh now realise eaten bread is soon forgotten?
Every year since he took over the State's 'bad bank' in 2009, McDonagh waived his entitlement to be considered for the payment. This means he forfeited about €2.7m, if we presume Nama's remuneration committee gave him the full whack every year. A fat lot of good that self-sacrifice did him. When Government sources said he would keep his €430,000 a year salary as housing tsar, there was such a public and political outcry that McDonagh had to step back from the role. The amount of gratitude or recognition that he had forfeited millions in bonus pay over the last 16 years? Zero. McDonagh could have taken the Michael Somers approach. Why are public servants working in finance so lavishly remunerated? As CEO of the National Treasury Management Agency, Nama's parent body, Somers received €1m in remuneration in 2008, surely a record for an Irish public servant. That was made up of a salary of €565,000 and a performance-related bonus of €403,000. Incidentally, Somers refused to disclose either his pay or that of anyone else in the agency – and it took an application by yours truly under the Freedom of Information Act, which the NTMA's lawyers Arthur Cox appealed to the information commissioner, for the details to be released. The current head of the NTMA, Frank O'Connor, was paid a salary of €480,000 in 2023. Other benefits brought him up to €570,000. Why are public servants working in finance so lavishly remunerated? McDonagh is paid a salary of €430,000 for managing an agency in wind-down with fewer than 90 staff. A lot less onerous than solving Ireland's housing crisis. Yet no one ever cared about his Nama pay. Stellar names for Dalkey as Michael D aims for new chart topper If readers of the Financial Times find their newspaper a bit thin in the middle of June, it's because half their staff have decamped to Dalkey to appear in the annual book festival. This year's line-up of speakers includes the pink paper's Simon Kuper, Robert Shrimsley, Ed Luce and John Burn-Murdoch. The organisers, David McWilliams and Sian Smyth, have again attracted some stellar names – Lionel Shriver, Steven Pinker and his wife Rebecca Goldstein, and Michael Lewis. But if the headline events are sold out, there's a few other intriguing contributors, including two opportunities to catch Des Traynor, the tech entrepreneur who co-founded Intercom. Communications consultant James Morrissey will be talking about Garech Browne and the establishment of Claddagh Records, and how he revived the label by signing a global deal with Universal Music. Morrissey tells me he will also be revealing the names of 'some new acts' Claddagh has signed, which include President Michael D Higgins – whose spoken-word album of poetry is to be released in the autumn. The Currency rolls over loan. No pressure then Having a nose through the latest accounts of Currency Media Ltd, the company behind the online business newspaper, we notice it has returned its fourth year of annual profits, and has an extremely healthy cash balance, with over €2.16m in the bank. Founded by financial journalists Tom Lyons and Ian Kehoe, it has about 7,000 subscribers – up by almost 1,000 in the last year – and is eyeing further expansion in London as well as Dublin. Interestingly, we note that The Currency, which began publishing in 2019, has rolled over a loan of €375,000 which has an interest rate of 8pc. This was an advance from 'friends and family', which include Michael McDowell, the putative future president, who declared his loan to the company when he had to file a register of interests as a senator. 'There's no payback date for the loan,' Lyons told us. 'We're not under any pressure to do so.' Press Up empire was built on debt, says Kelly The developer and venture capitalist Simon Kelly has provided a pithy analysis of the unravelling of the Press Up group – once Dublin's biggest hospitality empire. Kelly speaks from hard experience of course, since he and his father Paddy were among the high-profile casualties of the property market crash in 2008, which he outlined in the book Breakfast with Anglo. Press Up was founded just after the crash by Paddy McKillen Jr and Matt Ryan. By the end, the business seems to have been poorly structured and planned, Kelly says in a post on LinkedIn. The 'bad' venues among the 25 or so pubs, restaurants and hotels it owned seemed to have pulled down the 'good' ones. It will probably be broken up now, but this should never have been a 'group' in the first place, he reckons. 'The entire company was built on debt, with no permanent equity. The lenders seem to have extended and extended credit, in the hope of a solution. This just grows the deficit in the end!' he points out. He concludes that a slow correction in Dublin property continues to play out, although nobody is talking about it. 'All I see is the opportunity to pick up great assets at great prices.' Former FGers find their fortunes improve From Leo Varadkar to Simon Coveney to Brendan Griffin, several Fine Gael TDs from the last Dáil are dipping their toes into corporate waters. Maybe they are inspired by erstwhile party colleague Dara Murphy. The former lord mayor of Cork resigned as a TD in 2019, after a prolonged controversy about his non-appearances in the Dáil. The then opposition leader Micheál Martin described him as an 'absentee TD' after Murphy didn't speak for almost two years. After he left Leinster House, the former minister for European affairs landed a gig as vice president of Rasmussen Global, a political consultancy with offices in Brussels and Copenhagen. He also set up his own consultancy firm, Epecon, to lobby on EU affairs. It can 'deliver advice and analysis for those seeking to navigate this complex and interwoven regulatory landscape', according to regulatory filings. Epecon got off to a sluggish start. There were two years of losses, but in the 12 months to June 2022 it turned a corner and made of profit of almost €62,000. According to accounts just filed, Epecon made a profit of €96,783 in the year ending June 30 last. Its current assets are €435,729, up from €300,088 the previous year. Is there life after politics for former Fine Gael TDs? There is, and a potentially lucrative one too. Ronan Power steps into the light The board of the Irish Solar Energy Association has generously provided us with this week's Man Whose Name Suits His Job. It has announced that chief executive Conall Bolger will be stepping down at the end of May, and in his place they have appointed... Ronan Power.
The Journal
06-05-2025
- Business
- The Journal
Plans to guarantee NAMA boss his €430,000 salary must be scrapped, says Pearse Doherty
THE €430,000 SALARY for NAMA CEO Brendan McDonagh should not be carried over into his new job when the public body is dissolved at the end of the year, according to Sinn Féin spokesperson on Finance, Pearse Doherty. Doherty has said the government must reverse its plan to push through legislation that will lock-in the high salary. The NAMA legislation, published back in July and which is currently at committee stage, sets out the management of the wind down of the NAMA, such as the secondment of staff and their pay. Advertisement The legislation sets out that there was a agreement negotiated that any person that worked with the body shall not, on the dissolution day of the agency, be subject to less beneficial terms, which includes the remuneration they have been receiving. This means McDonagh, if he returns to his position in the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), will retain his €430,000 salary. Doherty said he had previously raised concerns at the Finance Committee about the matter and criticised the government's plan to guarantee an extraordinarily high public sector salary of €430,000, even when NAMA ceases to exist. 'The government is planning to push through the legislation in the coming months as NAMA is scheduled to be dissolved by the end of the year. 'That means that they are going to try and rush this legislation through, likely hoping they could bounce this through without anyone noticing the stroke they are pulling,' he said. Read Next Related Reads Chaos of housing tsar controversy is a symptom of a longer running dysfunction in Housing Tánaiste says it was correct to 'think through' housing tsar role but denies 'blocking' appointment Housing tsar controversy: McDonagh tells minister he no longer wants to be considered for job He said people are rightfully angry the controversy over the appointment of the housing tsar, which saw Fine Gael blocking the appointment last week, before McDonagh withdrew his name for consideration. Given that the IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill is still at committee stage, and has not yet passed all stages, there is space for amendments to the law. Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
