The outrageous salary the Taoiseach proposes to pay his new housing tsar is €430,000. It is nearly half a million euro - an astonishing amount of taxpayers' money for the salary of just one person. It is more than the Taoiseach's very generous salary. It is even more than the President of the United States is paid. It is equivalent to the starting salary of 11 new nurses, 11 new gardaí or 13 new special needs assistants. What is to be the role of this new highly paid tsar? From what we have heard, he will focus on removing roadblocks to housing construction, getting houses built more quickly and speeding up housing delivery or, in other words, the main responsibilities of the Minister for housing. That is a very expensive jobshare. It is clear the Government has no confidence in the ability of the Minister, Deputy James Browne, to do his job. This €430,000 is a slap in the face for working people who are hit with rip-off bill after rip-off bill and who struggle to make it to the end of the week. It is a kick in the teeth for those saving every spare cent as they desperately try to put together the deposit for a house and for every young person who has been forced to leave this country because he or she cannot afford a home. How does the Taoiseach justify this extravagant, gold-plated salary to those who are forced to fork out €2,000 on rent every months, to families who wait and wait on council waiting lists for a home or to mothers and fathers forced into homelessness, raising their children in hotel rooms or hubs? The appointment of the housing tsar changes nothing for them; that is the truth. This new, cushy job is part and parcel of the same broken Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael policies that landed us in this mess in the first place. As house prices, rents and homelessness all continue to rise, and as the Government parties miss their inadequate housing targets year after year, the Taoiseach's next move and his next big idea is to appoint another bureaucrat on an eye-watering salary. It truly beggars belief.
Sentiment score: -0.00
We have had the most expensive bike shed in the world, the €1 million security hut and the €9 million on phone pouches so people already know that the Taoiseach's Government is a serial waster of public money but this one really takes the biscuit. It has actually gone to the trouble of making up a job with a salary of €430,000 simply to give the appearance of Government action when it is doing nothing at all except going around and around in circles. It is the Government's clearest admission that it has no new idea of substance or any real plan to fix housing. Nuair atá Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael ag plé sár a earcú chun jab an Aire tithíochta a dhéanamh agus €430,000 a íoc leis, tá siad ag admháil go soiléir go bhfuil plean tithíochta an Rialtais ina phraiseach. The Taoiseach deliberately misled the electorate in November, he deliberately used false housing delivery figures to take the bad look off himself - he did that brazenly - and now he is at it again. He is spinning, bluffing and taking people for fools. As he spectacularly fails, he dreams up this appointment. Can the Taoiseach confirm the new housing tsar will be paid €430,000? Can he tell us how on earth he stands over this? Can he explain to us why he is recruiting a jobshare for his housing Minister?
Sentiment score: -0.14
The Government built fewer houses last year than the year before, and the indications are that it will fail to meet targets again this year and build less. The evidence is there for all to see in growing costs and in the levels of homelessness. All the evidence and data are there. More importantly, the reality is lived every day, so the Taoiseach can stand up and spoof and shout at me and point his finger but he cannot alter the reality of the Government's abject failure, which, astonishingly, he is attempting to dress up as success. If that is his idea of success, God help us should we ever see something he might deem to be a failure or an underperformance. I asked the Taoiseach three questions. I want him to confirm for us that this tsar will be paid €430,000. I do not care where he or she is seconded from. Is that the salary envisaged? I want the Taoiseach to explain how he stands over that. More importantly, why is he double-jobbing his Minister for housing? He has a full Cabinet Minister for housing.
Sentiment score: 0.06
Why does the Taoiseach have so little confidence in him?
Sentiment score: 0.51
Perhaps, in reality, he agrees with all of us-----
Sentiment score: 0.20
-----that neither he nor any Government Member is up to the task.
Sentiment score: 0.00
But I did refer to the €430,000.
Sentiment score: 0.00
What about the €430,000?
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Where is the Minister?
Sentiment score: 0.00