The Housing Activation Office ran into controversy this week when Fine Gael blocked the appointment of Fianna Fáil‘s preferred candidate, Nama‘s Brendan McDonagh, as its chief executive.
While the office has been established, finding someone to lead it is going to take more time, and the details of how it will work also appear to be far from finalised.
One thing we do know is that it is shaping up to be considerably different from what the Housing Commission proposed in its 2024 report.
This starts with its name – the commission called it the Housing Delivery Oversight Executive (HDOE).
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While you can argue over the importance of a name, the single biggest departure from what the commission recommended is that it will have no legislative power – and it is clear this was important to the commission.
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Speaking on RTÉ’s Prime Time this week, the Fine Gael Minister of State for Local Government and Planning John Cummins confirmed the HAO would be established on an administrative rather than a legislative basis – “because we don’t have time to wait”, he said.
The Housing Commission said the office’s function should be “mandated through legislation”.
It says the office “must” have the “authority” to establish a programme of reform, to make decisions and provide directions to eliminate delays to house building, and to report on the impacts of proposals and policies on housing delivery.
It also says it should have the “delegated authority” to resolve conflicts between public entities on infrastructure delivery.
The other issue is who would make up the office.
In a statement announcing the establishment of the HOA on Wednesday, Minister for Housing James Browne said it would “include experts seconded directly from key public infrastructure agencies ... including Uisce Éireann, ESB Networks, the National Transport Authority and the local government sector”.
While in a way this is more detailed than what was in the commission’s recommendations, it seems to miss private sector input from the likes of builders or developers.
The commission recommends “a governance structure for the HDOE that should comprise a board, executive and secretariat of people with the necessary experience and expertise, drawn from both public and private sectors”.
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Another outlier is the Minister’s commitment to establish two new groups under the HOA – the Housing Activation Delivery Group and the Housing Activation Industry Group.
While the Minister says “these aren’t committees for the sake of it”, it is unclear what their role is, and neither were recommended in the commission’s report.
