THE creation of a senior housing role who is paid a “gold-plated” salary is “a daft idea”, a Sinn Fein TD has said. The housing delivery unit is being created to tackle “silos” in increasing the supply of homes, but the government had made no decision on personnel or their salaries, the Tanaiste said. The Government had been expected to appoint the chief executive of the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), Brendan McDonagh, to lead the new unit. It has been reported in recent weeks that he could be seconded into the role and retain his Nama salary of around €430,000. This has put pressure on the Government over its housing strategy, particularly from the opposition who questioned the high salary. However, this evening it's understood Mr McDonagh told Housing Minister James Browne he doesn't want to be considered for the role. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty said it was “embarrassing” that the Government was prepared to pay someone half a million euros to take on the Housing Minister’s duties. Mr Doherty said during Leaders’ Questions on Thursday: “€430,000, that’s the off-the-wall salary that your Government is planning to pay the new housing tsar to come in and basically job share with the Housing Minister James Browne.” He said Mr Browne himself had described the role of “the housing tsar” as being responsible for rapid responses and “unlocking” housing delivery with the help of experts. The SF TD added: “Tanaiste, does the Housing Minister not realise that that’s his job that he’s describing? That’s his actual job. It’s farcical stuff.” Tanaiste and Fine Gael minister Simon Harris said one of the key issues with housing construction was “silos” between sectors. He said the Cabinet sub-committee on housing is due to meet on Thursday and a new housing plan is due by the summer recess. Deputy Harris added that the Housing Commission said that a Housing Delivery Oversight Executive was “essential to address the systemic reset required” in the housing sector. The Commission’s report said this body would “be legislatively empowered to remove obstacles to housing delivery and would drive coordination across legislation, regulation, and administrative practices”. HARRIS 'SURPRISED' Deputy Harris also said he was “surprised” at Sinn Fein’s opposition to the suggestion because its election manifesto proposed an office that would do “exactly what we now want to do”. Deputy Doherty interrupted to say “no housing tsar” to which Mr Harris said “there’s no housing tsar for us either”, which prompted laughter from the Sinn Fein benches. He continued: “We haven’t made any decisions in relation to personnel or pay. No decisions at all, and let me say this – process matters in relation to all of those issues. “The overriding objective won’t be personality. The overriding objective will be getting the job done.” Deputy Doherty replied “who are you trying to fool?” by claiming there is “no housing tsar in our plan”. 'THIS ISN'T ABOUT PERSONALITIES' He continued: “The idea that you’re blindsided in relation to this is just nonsense. Youse are proposing a housing tsar, youse are proposing a salary of €430,000. That’s what was on the table, on the cards here.” Deputy Harris replied that the housing minister brought forward a proposal to the cabinet begin setting up an office "to break down silos" in relation to housing. “The only decision the Government of Ireland took this week was in relation to that. “Now that the Government of Ireland has done that, we will now decide how best to populate the office, process matters, I want to understand the processes followed in relation to key personnel, and then we will address all of those matters and put this together. 'FIXER-IN-CHIEF' “Of course, people who do a job will be paid a salary, but this isn’t about personalities.” Labour leader Ivana Bacik called the role a “housing tsar with a Russian oligarch price tag” and “a fixer-in-chief”. She said: “It’s interesting to hear you and Fine Gael colleagues distancing yourselves from this, and indeed, I think people will be glad to hear that you’ve just said no decision has been made yet on how to populate this new office."