A FIANNA FÁIL minister has defended Minister for Housing James Browne over the controversy surrounding the appointment of a chief executive of a new housing office, saying there is cross-party agreement around establishing the unit to build houses at scale.

Minister for Higher Education James Lawless attempted to play down the controversy surrounding the government’s plan to appoint a housing ‘tsar’, saying the move is more about creating an office to deliver housing solutions.

The head of NAMA Brendan McDonagh on Thursday withdrew his name from consideration to be the first chief executive of the new office.

Browne, a member of Fianna Fáil, had said on RTÉ Radio that McDonagh was his preferred candidate for the role.

The statement caused consternation in the coalition as there wasn’t agreement on thea appointment before Browne spoke out about it publicly.

A spokesperson for Tánaiste Simon Harris, the leader of Fine Gael, said this week that it is better that such matters are not discussed in public before they are discussed by Harris and Taoiseach Micheál Martin, as well as Independent Seán Canney who represents the Regional Independents.

“The minister is ambitious. He wants to build houses, he wants to get things done and he wants to get things done quickly – and we all do,” Lawless said of Browne, speaking on RTE’s The Week In Politics programme.

“It’s not about the tsar individual. It’s actually about the office and the delivery. The public don’t want politics: the public want houses, and that’s what Government wants to deliver, that’s what Minister Browne is committed to delivering, that’s what all of us want to deliver,” Lawless said.

“We need to get through the barriers. We know what about infrastructural complications, we know about zoning, we know about planning permission,” he said, adding “on paper, there is cross-party agreement, including opposition, including the Housing Commission, which produced the report last year”.

“We need a housing activation office to break down the barriers, to build houses at scale and at urgency.”

However, Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon said what the government has proposed is not in line with recommendations from the Housing Commission report.

“What the Housing Commission did say that we needed (was) that the housing oversight executive would be placed onto a statutory footing, that it would have a legislative strength,” he said.

He said that what was being delivered instead was a “big title” for a role that is “supposed to go in and shake things up without any legislation”.

“The whole thing was bizarre. The whole thing has just been a shambles, and it’s indicative of the Government who don’t seem to know what they’re doing.”

Clare TD Donna McGettigan, Sinn Féin’s education spokesperson, said that while a housing activation office is in the party’s manifesto, their role is different to the one put forward by Government.

“The difference is it’s an executive we were calling for, which is what the Housing Commission is also calling for, and that would give it legislative powers,” she said.

“What is being proposed here by the government is just a name, a person that doesn’t have any powers, that is going to have a huge wage, which would have created 11 new garda, 11 new nurses, 13 new special needs assistants,” McGettigan said.

A poll published by Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks revealed that 52% of the public blamed Housing Minister James Browne for the controversy, while 46% blame Taoiseach Micheál Martin.

Approval for Minister for Housing James Browne was at just 30%, according to the poll. 

Some 88% of the public said the role should be advertised publicly and that the salary should be between €100,000 and €200,000.

Contains additional reporting by Press Association