Results 821-840 of 1,066,192 for in 'Dáil debates' OR (speaker:Ciarán Cuffe OR speaker:Jennifer Whitmore OR speaker:Cathal Berry OR speaker:Patrick Costello OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Thomas Pringle OR speaker:Mick Barry OR speaker:Jennifer Carroll MacNeill OR speaker:Aodhán Ó Ríordáin OR speaker:Pearse Doherty OR speaker:Peadar Tóibín OR speaker:Micheál Martin) in 'Committee meetings'

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Cormac Devlin: I welcome the opportunity to examine the Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024. The climate action committee waived pre-legislative scrutiny of it, as it has done for other Bills, to ensure the credits land on time for householders and that the work behind the scenes can be done for householders to benefit. The €250 energy credit will be spread over...

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Martin Browne: What is clear after the budget is that there is no Government plan to alleviate the pressures placed on households by the energy companies. While short-term measures are needed, Sinn Féin knows that to address the dysfunction in the Irish energy market, longer term measures also need to be taken. Wholesale energy prices have fallen by 75% since their peak, yet households are still...

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Of course, nobody who receives this credit before or after Christmas will be sorry to do so. As the ESRI has pointed out, however, the net effect of the Government’s budget is that some of the least well-off and most vulnerable households will be marginally less well off. That is pretty shameful. Given the astonishing, unprecedented budget surpluses and, of course, the Apple...

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Martin Kenny: Energy prices and the cost of fuel are some of the biggest issues facing people. I am always intrigued when I hear many of the various organisations that comment on the economy warning against investment in infrastructure and how it could create inflation. The truth is that the two biggest drivers of inflation in this country are the costs of housing and energy. Investing in those two...

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Jennifer Whitmore: This is the third year in a row debating emergency-----

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Gerald Nash: It is the fourth year in a row.

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Jennifer Whitmore: This is the fourth year in a row in which we are debating emergency measures and talking about one-off payments. At what stage is it no longer an emergency and a one-off payment? The fact it is being referred to in this way is indicative of a Government that has far too much money with no vision, ideas or real solutions to these problems which face so many people. If the Government had...

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Thomas Gould: We in Sinn Féin recognise that ordinary people are really struggling with the cost-of-living crisis and the failure of this Government to properly tackle it. We have the highest energy bills in Europe, including high gas bills. People are really struggling. That is why we believe the €250 the Government is offering does not go far enough. We believe that at least €450...

Electricity Costs (Emergency Measures) Domestic Accounts Bill 2024: Second Stage (9 Oct 2024)

Gerald Nash: I am pleased to speak on this Bill for the Labour Party. The State will have spent, I think, close to or in excess of €2 billion in energy credit payments since the onset of the energy crisis. We know only too well that this is by definition an untargeted measure. It is universal in nature and has been explained away as a once-off emergency measure to help people through a temporary...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland (9 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: Cuirim fáilte roimh na finnéithe agus gabhaim buíochas leo as na cuir i láthair. There are a couple of issues. First of all, Mr. Makhlouf mentioned the potential inflationary impact of the budget and of spending yet the European Central Bank, ECB, reduced interest rates. On one level, obviously, there is too much money going into the economy according to the constraints...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland (9 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: Therefore, it is fair to say that the Irish economy's cycle is not in sync with the other European economies, so while the reduction of interest rates is favourable for the other European economies, it is not actually favourable for the Irish economy at the moment.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland (9 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: Does the Central Bank push back against the decisions of the ECB in terms of the experience of the Irish economy around interest rates?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland (9 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: It just strikes me that one of the key components of the big housing crash we had a number of years ago was the fact that interest rates were made low for the German economy's sake and our economy was obviously overheating at a significant rate. The lever the Central Bank would have pulled, in monetary policy, had it had interest rates at the time would have been to cool down the Irish...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland (9 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: I appreciate that there were lots of reasons the housing crisis happened. It would be my view that the ECB would have a closer eye to Germany's needs economically in setting the interest rate than it would in respect of Ireland. That is a another day's discussion but that is strongly my view. There are constraints within the Irish economy. If investment goes in that is too large in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the Central Bank of Ireland (9 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: Given that housing is probably one of the biggest constraints within the economy, would it not be logical for the Government to really focus on increasing the labour supply in terms of housing? Hundreds of thousands of Irish construction workers left for Australia and Canada just after the last crash. If a concerted effort was made to bring home a significant number of those workers, that...