Results 1,981-2,000 of 7,412 for speaker:Neasa Hourigan

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: General Scheme of the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill 2019: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: What if it tasted of nothing?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: General Scheme of the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill 2019: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: We have established from Ms O'Connell that we would prefer if people were not using anything. I presume Mr. Connolly would prefer not to be addicted to nicotine. Is that fair to say?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: General Scheme of the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill 2019: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: I am out of time. To call it a cessation device implies it is a temporary measure and that if, therefore, people start with tobacco flavour, move to flavourless and then take up blueberry or strawberry milkshake, what Mr. Connolly is suggesting is keeping people vaping. Surely vaping should be a staging post to not taking anything at all.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health: General Scheme of the Public Health (Tobacco and Nicotine Inhaling Products) Bill 2019: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: The data does not support that.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: The Deputy is explaining it. Does someone wish to respond on how easy it is to model various versions of this?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: I will come in with some of my own questions now. This may be a question for the Department of Finance. Does automatic indexation, even if it was something we could pause or set aside at points, help more generally with budgetary forecasting? I am thinking in particular of the kind of budgetary forecasting in reference to demographic planning and so on. Is it useful as a tool in that sense?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Would it provide an expected baseline of Government action?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Yes.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Broadly, the systems in the EU that we have looked at have allowed for a get-out clause or for it to be set aside. One reason I ask this, and maybe it is a nebulous question, is that Mr. Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies was at the committee last week. Much of the session was spent talking about when and how it was set aside and how indexation had not constrained the British...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Right, okay.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Do any of the Departments here have an estimate of the cost of a smoothed earnings approach if we were to implement it this year?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: I will take an answer for 2022 or 2023 if Mr. Lawler can give me a sense of it.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Then we can extrapolate out from there other social welfare.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Okay. I do not know if the next question is for the Department of Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform or Social Protection. If we had a smoothed earnings approach, is that something the Departments could implement themselves or would they need some sort of oversight body to engage with that process?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Does the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform agree?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: I have asked the following question to previous speakers on this topic. I am thinking, in particular, of the issue of prospective or retrospective modelling, whether that is prices or wages. Do we currently gather enough data within our system to have a robust calculation of that? Do we believe we do? As a committee, we get lots of reports from all of the Departments. It seems that a...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Yes, it may be politically difficult.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: When I ask this question, I am very aware that I am talking to representatives from the Departments. I do not mean to put the witnesses in a difficult position, but I want to touch on the issue of whether the indexation should be statutory or in legislation, and the potential advantages and disadvantages of that. I am working on the assumption that there would be get-out or set-aside...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: Is it fair to say that bearing in mind that subsequent Governments could roll back on what are fairly substantial changes to the working methodology of building budgets, if it is working well, in a perfect world it should be statutory? Perhaps Mr. Cullen does not want to commit to an answer.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Indexation of Taxation and Social Protection System: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Feb 2022)

Neasa Hourigan: I am very aware that Deputy Ryan is waiting to come in. I am nearly finished; I apologise. One of the issues that was touched on in the last session with Mr. Johnson, which we had not touched on in the two previous sessions, was the issue of regulated prices. In the UK, obviously student loans account for a large proportion of that. Other relevant areas include travel, cars, the cost of...