The Government has confirmed that there was no competitive process for the role of Dublin’s regeneration “tsar” to which former civil servant Robert Watt has been appointed at an annual salary of €280,000.
The Cabinet approved the appointment of the former secretary general of the Department of Health at its meeting on Tuesday and said Watt would be seconded from the Department of Housing.
He will become chief executive of the Dublin City Regeneration Authority, which has been set up as a special purpose vehicle to put into effect the findings of the Dublin city taskforce, which reported in 2024.
A Government spokeswoman confirmed on Tuesday that the role was a secondment and therefore was not open to competition.
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Watt will be employed on a three-year contract on the top tier of the secretary general scale of €280,000 per year. That is a reduction from his €297,000 salary when at the Department of Health.
Several former secretaries general such as Seán Ó Foghlú of the Department of Education (now with the University of Maynooth), and former secretary general of Government Martin Fraser (now Irish ambassador to the United Nations), had come to the end of seven-year terms in their roles, which required them to step down.
Watt’s contract is understood to have been a hybrid one. He moved to the Department of Health for a five-year term and is now being seconded.
Previously he had been secretary general of the Department of Public Expenditure. He has possibly the highest profile of all civil servants in Ireland.
There has been some criticism of the new body and its mandate.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman said it was a “repackaging of stuff we were doing already”.
Speaking in the Dáil, he said projects the former Department of Health secretary general will have responsibility for were in train years before the Dublin taskforce published its report.
Dublin City Council officials told councillors the new authority “will lead on the vacancy and dereliction work” and will have a role in revitalising O’Connell Street and the surrounding areas, O’Gorman said, including the regeneration of Moore Street.
O’Gorman said these were just two of the taskforce’s 10 recommendations, which also included a total regeneration of social housing complexes in the city centre to provide warmer homes, better and more localised services for vulnerable populations, and the provision of an additional 1,000 gardaí for the city centre.
The taskforce said €750 million to €1 billion in extra investment was necessary to deliver all 10 recommendations, he said.
“The whole idea behind setting up the taskforce was because additionality was needed to move the dial within Dublin’s city centre. It was never meant to be a repackaging of stuff we were doing already.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said, however, the new agency would have powers and capacity for the “regeneration of the core of Dublin city, particularly the O’Connell Street area more generally”. He said the Government “will not be found wanting in supporting housing provision in the area”.
“With the GPO in particular, we are doing a lot of investment in Moore Street,” he said. A large range of properties are currently in the private sector. “That is an evolving situation, but I would like to have a situation emerge where the State has greater capacity to revitalise key assets on O’Connell Street.”
He also said: “Essentially, all the building blocks are being put in place now to get moving on what is a 10-year area strategy for Dublin city centre. It will tackle vacancy and dereliction and get real change and will transform the situation there. I am confident we can do it.”
