New Housing Minister James Browne will appoint ‘maverick’ fixer to ‘kick open doors’ and tackle homes crisis

Housing Minister James Browne is appointing a fixer-in-chief who will be tasked with “kicking open doors” to activate housing delivery. Government sources say the individual will be a “maverick” and an “outsider” who will not come from the current pool of senior civil servants. The new appointment will oversee a new arm of the housing department called the Strategic Housing Activation Office (SHAO), which will launch within six to eight weeks. It will fall directly under the control of the Housing Minister. The new office will be made up of a mixture of individuals from the private sector and public sector, a recommendation which was originally put forward by the Housing Commission. In an interview in today’s Sunday Independent, Mr Browne said the SHAO will be the “boots on the ground” and tasked with “troubleshooting”. “If you go anywhere in the country, you’ll see houses are not being delivered because of an Irish water problem, an ESB problem, a zoning problem, a regulation problem,” he said. The SHAO, he added, will be “looking into every single area where housing has not been delivered and ask why is it not happening and what do we have to do to rapidly sort delivery. “It is not going to be another departmental office. It is going to be external. It’s going to be people who are experienced at kicking open those doors to get that delivery.” So who exactly is James Browne, the man charged with the toughest job in the country — fixing Ireland’s broken housing system?