€430,000 to Do a Job We Already Pay a Minister for Housing to Do
In the middle of a housing emergency, the government’s solution is to create a duplicate job — at a price that insults every struggling renter, buyer, and homeless family in Ireland.
There’s only one word for the government’s latest move in Ireland’s housing debacle: disgrace.
In the middle of a housing crisis that has robbed an entire generation of the right to a home, what’s the grand solution from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael? Hire a so-called “Housing Tsar” at a staggering €430,000 salary. That’s not just tone-deaf. It’s a slap in the face to every young person forced to emigrate, every family raising children in hotel rooms, and every working adult handing over half their wages to landlords each month.
Mary Lou McDonald hit the nail on the head during her Dáil takedown: this bloated salary is “more than the President of the United States is paid” and could fund 11 new nurses, 11 gardaí, or 13 special needs assistants. And for what? To do the job that the Minister for Housing should be doing already?
Let’s be clear: this “Housing Tsar” isn’t some magic solution. The job description sounds suspiciously like the actual brief of the Housing Minister – removing roadblocks, accelerating construction, getting homes built. If James Browne (or any housing minister) can’t manage that, then sack him. Don’t hire an outrageously expensive stand-in to create the illusion of action.
This is government by gimmick. A €430,000 bandage slapped over a gaping wound they helped create.
The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, tried to spin his way out of it, claiming that housing output has reached levels “not seen since the 1970s.” He added, “Over 130,000 houses have been constructed over the last three years,” as if raw numbers, divorced from population and demand, prove progress. But when you adjust for population, the reality doesn’t hold up.
In 1975, Ireland built nearly 9,000 social homes for a population of around 3.2 million — that’s 2.75 homes per 1,000 people. In 2022, it was 7,433 new social homes for over 5 million people — just 1.46 per 1,000. Even in the so-called “record” year of 2023, it still doesn’t match the 1970s.
The “record” numbers Martin boasts about are hollow when the waiting lists grow, homelessness rises, and the cost of rent makes a mockery of working life. The government is throwing figures like confetti, hoping we won’t notice that the room is still on fire.
This isn’t just bureaucratic waste — it’s moral failure. When people are living in tents, paying €2,000 in rent for one-bed boxes, or forced to move abroad because they’ll never afford a deposit, what kind of government prioritises vanity hires with six-figure salaries?
And don’t be fooled by Martin’s last-minute claim that the role will be filled via secondment with “no additional cost.” If that’s the case, why float the €430k figure in the first place? Why dangle a salary more golden than the Celtic Tiger itself? Because this isn’t about solving housing — it’s about headlines. It’s about pretending to act, while doing nothing at all.
Mary Lou’s right — and I say this as someone who doesn’t always agree with her. This is peak political theatre, where the script is failing and the audience is furious.
What Ireland needs isn’t a Housing Tsar. It’s political courage. It’s accountability. And it’s a government that treats housing not as a PR problem, but as a national emergency.
Until then, every cent spent on this fantasy job is one more insult to the people they’re supposed to serve.
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