Minister pushes back on top Housing civil servant who says Ireland 'doesn't need' housing tsar

LAST UPDATE | 29 May

MINISTER FOR PUBLIC Expenditure, Jack Chambers, has pushed back on comments made today by the top civil servant in the Department of Housing, who said this morning that Ireland “doesn’t need” a housing tsar. 

Earlier today, the Business Post reported that Graham Doyle, the secretary general of the Department of Housing, said a tsar wasn’t needed to solve blockages when it comes to delivering houses.

He made the remarks at a housing event organised by Property Industry Ireland (PII), an Ibec lobby group.

Doyle told those at the event that an “interventionist approach” was needed on the ground, at site level and said: “We never, ever used the word tsar”.

The term ‘housing tsar’ has been the informal name used to refer to the head of the Government’s proposed Housing Activation Office. 

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According to the Business Post, attendees at the event were asked to do a public vote on whether Ireland needs a housing tsar. Doyle said: “I voted no”. 

Responding to the secretary general’s opposition to the role, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers told reporters this afternoon that regardless of Doyle’s own view, he will have to implement the Government’s plans. 

“We’ve been very clear. The Government position is that there will be someone leading the Housing Activation Office, and it’s a matter of Government policy and direction.

“That’s what will occur. The view of the secretary general might be his own perspective or input onto the matter, but he’ll have to implement what the Government decides and what government direction is on housing policy,” Chambers said. 

He added that the Housing Minister has been “very clear” that a Housing Activation Office, and someone to lead it, is required. 

In a statement, the Department of Housing said: 

“With respect to the Secretary General Graham Doyle’s comments at today’s Property Industry Ireland conference, he took the opportunity to strongly emphasise that the word “tsar” is not – and was never – appropriate to describe the Housing Activation Office (HAO) CEO position and, indeed, was not coined by the Department or the Minister.

“Mr Doyle also emphasised, when called upon at the event this morning, that the HAO will have a CEO with an interventionist approach to key sites on the ground, not a “tsar” and the connotations that word evokes. The focus on ‘Tsar’ in past coverage has been misleading and not reflective of the real intent and purpose of the HAO role.

“The Secretary General is fully supportive of the HAO and wholly supportive of the Minister and what he is trying to achieve in this regard.”