Results 621-640 of 1,230,857 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Violet-Anne Wynne OR speaker:Cathal Crowe OR speaker:Mattie McGrath OR speaker:Jack Chambers OR speaker:Alan Dillon OR speaker:Holly Cairns OR speaker:Sorca Clarke OR speaker:Martin Browne OR speaker:Matt Shanahan OR speaker:Brian Stanley OR speaker:Michael Healy-Rae OR speaker:Seán Crowe OR speaker:Joan Collins OR speaker:Brendan Howlin OR speaker:Seán Fleming OR speaker:Catherine Connolly OR speaker:Seán Canney OR speaker:Catherine Martin OR speaker:Steven Matthews OR speaker:Joe McHugh OR speaker:Patricia Ryan OR speaker:Réada Cronin OR speaker:Seán Sherlock OR speaker:Martin Kenny OR speaker:John Lahart OR speaker:Pearse Doherty OR speaker:Ivana Bacik OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Hildegarde Naughton OR speaker:Fergus O'Dowd OR speaker:Cormac Devlin OR speaker:Brian Leddin OR speaker:Kieran O'Donnell OR speaker:Gino Kenny OR speaker:Noel Grealish OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Darragh O'Brien OR speaker:Colm Burke OR speaker:Brendan Griffin OR speaker:Danny Healy-Rae OR speaker:Rose Conway-Walsh OR speaker:Malcolm Noonan OR speaker:Stephen Donnelly OR speaker:Denise Mitchell OR speaker:James Browne OR speaker:Jim O'Callaghan OR speaker:Willie O'Dea OR speaker:Michael McGrath OR speaker:Paul Donnelly)

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Welfare, Treatment and Traceability of Horses: Discussion (Resumed) (23 Oct 2024)

Réada Cronin: Is there any contact between the gardaí who are working with My Lovely Horse Animal Rescue as volunteers? Has there been any communication with other states around how they set that up?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Apologies for the vote. My first question refers to an endorsement IFAC provided for the economic projections which were released alongside budget 2025. In the letter of endorsement on the macroeconomic projections, IFAC stated that one of the three elements of the basis for its approach is a review of the Department's past forecasts to look for errors and systematic bias. Is it fair to...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Maybe IFAC could let us have that. How many times has it overestimated? It should be fairly easy to see in GNI*. It is important for us to see the patterns that are there. IFAC endorsed the macroeconomic projection we received on budget day. Apart from the element I outlined, it also looked at the comparisons on the benchmark projections and forecasts from other bodies. IFAC said that...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Okay. Do the witnesses think the inclusion of BEPS pillar 1 kicking in in 2026 is a credible expectation?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Why?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Does IFAC have any oversight of the multiplier that is used by the Department for current and capital expenditure?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: I refer to the multiplier that is used which means that if we put X in, we get Y out.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Does IFAC have any impact on the multiplier that is used by the Department? It is difficult to tell. There are lots of moving parts.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: It might be something worth looking into in terms of the transparency of future estimates. Does IFAC assess the level of public expenditure based on the share of the real economy, which is obviously GNI*? From my own estimates, when I compare either net expenditure or general Government expenditure, it shows we are spending less today than we were in 2019, the year before the current...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: It is also necessary, though, to look at inflation. We never signed up to the restrictive Fine Gael 5% spending rule. I believe we have been proven right in relation to inflation. Of the three examples that IFAC gave us in its submission, namely, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden, the first two specifically take inflation into account and look at the increases in spending in real terms....

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: It is less today than it was in 2019 in terms of spending. It is a kind of contradiction in one sense. The concern is that all this highlights some of the risks associated with legislating for the spending rules.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: No, exactly. What we are trying to get at here, however, is to be fiscally responsible but still have enough flexibility to be able to adapt to and respond to external changes that occur. It is about the balance rather than about tying ourselves into something if we were to legislate for the rule.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: I thank Dr. Casey for that. The EU fiscal rules state that the medium-term fiscal plans will commit member states to an agreed net expenditure path for a five-year period. The plan will subsequently be endorsed by the Council of the European Union. It is stated that once endorsed by the European Council, it is generally not possible to deviate from the agreed net expenditure path unless...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: It is trying to stop it.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Yes. I think this is crucially important because we are adding an additional national restriction to an economic decision of a democratically-elected government. I think this is extremely serious. IFAC's submission refers to it having an enforcement role in regard to the EU fiscal rules. Will the witnesses expand on this statement? I refer to what IFAC having an additional enforcement...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: What about the decision of the democratically elected Government? I really have concerns about this.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Rose Conway-Walsh: Five years is a long time in politics.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Seán Canney: I thank our guests for coming in today. From a lay person's point of view, we are talking about economies, budgets and five-year plans but a five-year plan is not worth the paper it is written on in the context of what happened in Ukraine or of Covid, for example. Basically, such plans are for an ideal world, if everything was right. When we have a spike in inflation, all kinds of...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Seán Canney: If one considers the surplus taxes that we have coming in now and the fact that some of that is being stored away in the so-called rainy day fund, is that the type of action that a good government should be taking so that we have reserves when we need them? An example of an area about which people are very frustrated is that of house building. Private housing is not being built. That...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ireland's Medium-Term Fiscal and Structural Plan: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (23 Oct 2024)

Seán Canney: What is Mr. Coffey's take on people promising that we are going to build 60,000 houses? How does he see that being done when we cannot even build 30,000 at the moment? That is not a political question. I am asking how the council sees this being done. Will something else have to be sacrificed, for example, retrofitting or something like that? Does Mr. Coffey have any comments on that?