Results 81-100 of 1,138,314 for in 'Dáil debates' OR in 'Committee meetings' (speaker:Rory O'Hanlon OR speaker:Peter Fitzpatrick OR speaker:Seán Sherlock OR speaker:Joe McHugh OR speaker:Aindrias Moynihan OR speaker:Cathal Berry OR speaker:Micheál Martin OR speaker:Helen McEntee OR speaker:Matt Carthy OR speaker:Louise O'Reilly OR speaker:Johnny Mythen OR speaker:Michael Healy-Rae OR speaker:Catherine Connolly OR speaker:Pearse Doherty OR speaker:Michael McGrath OR speaker:Jim O'Callaghan OR speaker:Thomas Gould OR speaker:Seán Ó Fearghaíl OR speaker:Marc Ó Cathasaigh OR speaker:Seán Ó Fearghaíl9 OR speaker:Darren O'Rourke OR speaker:John Lahart OR speaker:Anne Rabbitte OR speaker:Thomas Byrne OR speaker:Matt Shanahan OR speaker:Pádraig Mac Lochlainn OR speaker:Martin Kenny OR speaker:Joan Collins OR speaker:Róisín Shortall OR speaker:Eoin Ó Broin OR speaker:Alan Farrell OR speaker:Ossian Smyth OR speaker:Niamh Smyth)

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Michael Healy-Rae: I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill 2024. I said in my contribution on the budget that this was a budget of choices. I believe many of the choices made were poor. There was plenty of money but no plan. I have continuously said that. The announcement on inheritance tax, for example, and the changes do not reflect the situation on the ground or the value of...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Richard O'Donoghue: Why does the Government get it wrong all the time? I have a business background and have been self-employed nearly all my life. I have education of life and of business because I am in business. Why does the Cabinet get it wrong all the time? The Government likes percentage models. How many in the Cabinet are businesspeople or come from the farming or community sector where they have...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Danny Healy-Rae: I am glad to get the opportunity to say a few words about the missed opportunities in this budget. There was very little in it for farmers. I have been on about solar panels months and perhaps years. There was a promise that farmers would qualify for a 60% grant to put in solar panels, which could produce anywhere between 60% to 80% of their overall power consumption on farms. However,...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Maurice Quinlivan: Unfairness was at the heart of this budget. Once-off gesture measures cannot mask that fact. The choice was made by the Government parties and is not the choice that we in Sinn Féin would have made. The Government opted, in this and previous budgets, to give significantly more benefit to higher earners than to those workers and families who have been most impacted by the ongoing...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Cathal Berry: I welcome the opportunity to make some brief comments on this Finance Bill and budget 2025 in general. I will focus on primary care and the tax treatment of GPs working in it. It is fortuitous that the Ceann Comhairle is in the Chair and the Minister of State, Deputy Lawless, is on the ministerial podium. I think they are familiar with the case I am about to raise. Deputy Shortall raised...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Noel Grealish: My colleagues and I in the Regional Group have consistently supported the reduced rate of VAT for businesses in the food and hospitality sector because of the huge importance of this sector to the fabric of our communities. Tourism is a vital contributor to the economy of Ireland, particularly the west and Galway, but also to the survival of some communities in areas where there is little or...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

John McGuinness: I continue from where the previous speaker left the argument. There is a huge case to be made for small businesses. They are under enormous pressure. That is not a whinge; it is a fact. We have failed to understand the challenges that face small cafés, restaurants, retailers, food outlets and clothing outlets. We do not seem to understand what it takes for them to make a profit in...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: I have never seen a Finance Bill in the history of the State that seeks to buy the votes of citizens so brazenly. It is incredible. Even the one-off payments are designed to happen just before and after the election. This is not the Government’s money it is using to buy votes, but the citizens’, which it is leveraging to put itself back into government. Fine Gael has been in...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

James Lawless: Four years.

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: It has been eight years. Fianna Fáil was in a confidence and supply arrangement with the then Government, which meant the latter only existed because of Fianna Fáil’s support. It is like this Government is trying to hypnotise the people of Ireland with shiny coins to make them forget what has happened over the past ten years. That is wrong. The Finance Bill should have...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Seán Canney: I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. First, I will speak about a situation that is pertinent to what we are talking about and has arisen in my town, Tuam. The Pieta service has operated there for the past ten years in a purpose built unit, but due to a lack of funding it is now pulling out of its facility that was purpose built with the sweat and tears of local people. The...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Ruairi Ó Murchú: It is another year, another budget, and another finance Bill, and we have a continuity of unfairness. We have not had the levelling-out with the huge resources we have with regard to those who have and those who do not. This is the Government's final budget. We are talking about the same two-tier income tax package we have come to expect. The cost-of-living crisis is obviously not over...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: The Deputy might try tabling an amendment to the Bill to address those interesting matters.

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

James Lawless: That is what parliamentary questions are for.

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Ruairi Ó Murchú: They would have to go through six months or more. He would be happy enough if he could do the test now but he said there was a possibility of a digicard with the New Zealand licence, and even if there was, there is the timeline anomaly with regard to it. However, there is an overall solution that needs to be implemented, such as a bilateral agreement. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for his...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: I thank Deputy Ó Murchú. He is a man of great versatility. Deputy Boyd Barrett is next.

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is a remarkable achievement by the Government that it has a budget surplus of, I think, €25 billion. The Minister of State can correct me if I am wrong. I think it is €25 billion or in that region. It has a windfall of €13 billion plus in Apple tax money that it did not want because it would have preferred that Apple, a staggeringly wealthy and profitable company,...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Róisín Shortall: I very much welcome the opportunity to again discuss budget measures. I will concentrate, in particular, on tax measures contained in budget 2025 that, overall, are bad for the public and bad for the State. Budget 2025 can only be characterised as a naked attempt to buy the election. As I said on budget day, it has all the hallmarks of a Bertie budget. The Government's overriding...

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl: I thank Deputy Nash. For another Louth perspective, I call Deputy Fergus O'Dowd.

Finance Bill 2024: Second Stage (16 Oct 2024)

Fergus O'Dowd: I call on all the people who have any knowledge of the disappearance and murder of that young boy in Drogheda to co-operate fully with the Garda. It is very important. What we have been told today is shocking and traumatic and everybody who can help should. I welcome this budget. There are many important things in it, which I welcome. In particular, I will talk about older people....