Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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The way Mr. McDonagh has presented his response is interesting. It certainly appears that he was interested in what could potentially be a very exciting, interesting role and that could potentially be transformative. One could look at it another way, namely that there is another layer of bureaucracy that the Minister wants to introduce to ensure he is not held accountable for some of the failures we are experiencing in our housing system. However, that is not for Mr. McDonagh or anybody else to say. It seems that Mr. McDonagh would have considered taking this position were it not for the fact that there was media controversy and that a dispute about it had arisen at the highest level of Government. Would he have taken the position? He withdrew quite quickly, clearly as a result of the media controversy surrounding the issue. He has put on the record of the committee the fact that he met the Secretary General on 10 April - that was his first meeting in respect of this issue - and that on 16 April he was asked to meet the Minister, Deputy Browne. He also told the committee that his understanding from the Minister was that – he may wish to clarify this – a name, potentially his name, would go to the Cabinet sub-committee on housing and that this was where the matter would be dealt with. Was Mr. McDonagh surprised to see his name linked with this job in the media before the matter went to the Cabinet sub-committee?