Results 741-760 of 1,224,750 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Peter Burke OR speaker:Damien English OR speaker:Simon Coveney OR speaker:Darren O'Rourke OR speaker:Michael Fitzmaurice OR speaker:Cathal Berry OR speaker:Alan Dillon OR speaker:Niamh Smyth OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Jennifer Whitmore OR speaker:Jackie Cahill OR speaker:Denise Mitchell OR speaker:Michael Lowry OR speaker:Johnny Mythen OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív OR speaker:Patricia Ryan OR speaker:Jennifer Murnane O'Connor OR speaker:Catherine Connolly OR speaker:Rose Conway-Walsh OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív98 OR speaker:Paul Murphy OR speaker:Malcolm Noonan OR speaker:Ossian Smyth OR speaker:Verona Murphy OR speaker:Thomas Pringle OR speaker:Ciarán Cannon OR speaker:Micheál Martin OR speaker:Aindrias Moynihan OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív15 OR speaker:Seán Haughey OR speaker:Seán Canney OR speaker:Marian Harkin OR speaker:Colm Brophy OR speaker:Roderic O'Gorman OR speaker:Mary Lou McDonald OR speaker:Neasa Hourigan OR speaker:David Cullinane OR speaker:Mattie McGrath OR speaker:John McGuinness OR speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett OR speaker:James Lawless OR speaker:James Browne OR speaker:Colm Burke OR speaker:Ivana Bacik OR speaker:Christopher O'Sullivan OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív88 OR speaker:Brendan Griffin OR speaker:Neale Richmond OR speaker:Danny Healy-Rae OR speaker:Michael Creed OR speaker:Dara Calleary OR speaker:Gerald Nash OR speaker:John Lahart OR speaker:Jennifer Carroll MacNeill OR speaker:James O'Connor OR speaker:Éamon Ó Cuív87 OR speaker:Duncan Smith OR speaker:Cormac Devlin)

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)

Aindrias Moynihan: We will move on. I will give Deputies a chance to come back in again later.

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?

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

Seán Canney: The way Mr. Coffey describes some of the difficulties in getting foreign workers or getting our own people who have gone abroad to come back is like a chicken-and-egg situation. We have to provide the houses for them to live in to give them the permanency they need. They would want a guarantee that they would get a house here if they came back.

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

Seán Canney: This is not a loaded question but it relates to the role of IFAC. Do the witnesses find that nobody listens to what they say when they have concerns about fiscal rules or projections and forecasts that are being made? Are they being listened to by governments? Do they feel that their role is effective? People say the Government is composed of the elected representatives of the people and...

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

Seán Canney: I have one last question. I did my leaving certificate in the mid-1970s and for whatever reason, there were no jobs at the time. When I was in the construction industry there was very little work in the early 1980s, then we had the boom and it was followed by the situation in 2008. Should we be doing specific analysis to generate lessons for the future? I include how we performed during...

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

Seán Canney: I thank the guests.

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

Patricia Ryan: I thank our guests. I apologise about the voting; it just makes everything very awkward. Anyway, we will move on swiftly. Would our guests recommend that the Government disregard or disapply the net spending rule when allocating funding for the likes of State old age pensions, especially considering that the recent increase of €12 granted in budget 2025 has caused a real decrease...

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

Patricia Ryan: What are Mr. Coffey's thoughts on benchmarking?

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

Patricia Ryan: That is fine. I asked Mr. Coffey for that reason. I thank him. To minimise the risk caused by the current overreliance on the tax take from just three corporations, would the council recommend the Government remove vulture funds’ charity status, making their rental and other income subject to tax? The funds have a considerable presence in the housing, rental and mortgage markets....

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

Patricia Ryan: Is there anything extra we could be doing to alleviate some of the problems caused for people by vulture funds?

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

Patricia Ryan: That is fair enough. That is all I wanted to ask. I thank all the guests very much. I appreciate the chance I have been given.

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

Aindrias Moynihan: I have one or two questions myself. I understand the kind of enforcement or pushback that would be put into execution by the European Commission in the event of rules being broken is unclear. Is that unique to Ireland, or is it across all EU countries?

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

Aindrias Moynihan: What kind of enforcement does Mr. Coffey envisage?

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

Aindrias Moynihan: Mr. Coffey had mentioned flexibility. It was also referenced with regard to the 2024 budget and the setting aside of the two funds. What is the council's take on the capacity of those to give that kind of flexibility?

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

Aindrias Moynihan: Does Deputy Canney have any further questions? No. Okay, they were pretty much the questions the members and I had. I thank the witnesses for their input and their patience with the votes and everything. That concludes our session. I thank the witnesses for participating.