Results 20,081-20,100 of 20,682 for speaker:Mary Hanafin

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The Government is committed to continuing the primary care programme. The Exchequer is involved at all levels in so far as the Health Service Executive is directly building some of these centres or they are being built privately with the executive leasing them for its staff. Already 200 centres are under consideration for leasing arrangements with 90 in contract arrangements, of which 30...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I do not propose to accept the recommendation. As previously indicated, the only reliefs from the carbon tax are in respect of those companies within the EU emissions trading scheme, ETS, where a carbon pricing mechanism is already in place. It is not intended to offer reliefs for sectors outside the ETS. I refer to recommendation No. 20. Those installations within the ETS that use...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: As the Senator will be aware, I am here on behalf of the Minister for Finance who does not propose to accept the recommendations, primarily because there was evidence of a scheme being abused in the past and he wants to stamp out such abuse and because of the difficulties that would arise, for example, in allowing car scrappage in the case of some cars but not all, etc. It is an issue of...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I do not propose to accept the recommendation. However, the Minister for Finance wants to point out that the full Exchequer revenue implications of the application of VAT to the activities of public bodies, including local authorities, are difficult to estimate, even after the tax has been applied for some time. Whereas there will probably be a positive revenue yield for the Exchequer, it...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: It will be a lot less than anticipated when it is considered the public bodies and the businesses will both be able to recoup the moneys involved. The amount of moneys coming into the Exchequer will be quite small. I am not in a position to commit to a report on the yield but the Department of Finance will be keeping an eye on it.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The Minister for Finance indicated he is not clear on the purpose or the intent of such a report. A commitment under the renewed programme for Government is to move on the introduction of a site valuation tax for non-agricultural land. However, considerable groundwork will have to be done on this before the tax can even be introduced. The starting point for this would be establishing the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The issues of reporting and accountability were discussed during the debate on the National Asset Management Agency Bill. At the time the Minister made it clear that he was in favour of effective Oireachtas oversight of the work of NAMA. For that reason he ensured substantial provisions were included in the NAMA Act to provide for oversight by the Oireachtas. Further to the quarterly...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: It is premature, even for those who oppose NAMA, to criticise the lack of information in respect of that body which has barely commenced its work. It will be only when NAMA is up and running that we will see the extent of the oversight already written into the legislation.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: These recommendations seek to increase the oversight provision in respect of NAMA. However, such provision is already contained in the NAMA legislation. I accept the point in regard to the first report being published just as the Dáil and Seanad go into recess. The legislation states "on or before" the 30th. I am sure the Minister could suggest it comes in good time to enable the...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: It is normal practice for a Minister to oversee all the activity of the State agency, including the fees etc. In the same way as I outlined that those fees would be reviewed at the end of the year, they can decrease at that stage. However, the fees are initially set prior to the work of NAMA commencing and it was only then that they realised the extent of the time and work that was going to...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: Yes. Recommendation put and declared lost.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2010 (Certified Money Bill): Committee Stage. (25 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I understand this has been in every Finance Bill since the establishment of the State and that it is standard procedure. It was introduced to establish the capital services account, also known as a sinking fund. This was established on foot of a decision that borrowings for voted capital services should be amortised over a period of 30 years so that they would involve no permanent addition...

Written Answers — Departmental Agencies: Departmental Agencies (30 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The salaries of the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), or equivalents, of the agencies under the aegis of my Department are as set out in Table 1 below. The details of the current approved benefits packages of these CEOs, or equivalents, are as set out in Table 2 below. In addition, the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism and the Northern Ireland Department of Enterprise, Trade and...

Written Answers — Departmental Reports: Departmental Reports (30 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The Report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes, as published in July 2009, made a number of recommendations in respect of my Department and the agencies under its aegis. Specifically, the Special Group made proposals to reduce programme expenditure by almost €105 million in 2010 and to structurally reduce 170 staff across the Department and its...

Tourism Industry. (31 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I am aware from my initial contacts with tourism industry interests of potential difficulties in the availability and pricing of car hire during the peak summer period. I understand that a number of events have brought about the contraction in the car hire fleet. Traditionally, car rental companies bought new cars from dealers. They required the dealer to agree a price at which he or she...

Tourism Industry. (31 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I thank Deputy Mitchell for her good wishes. We share the same interest in this area of tourism, culture and sport, and I look forward to working with this Department. There are a number of issues in this regard. I accept that there is a potential problem here for the tourist industry generally. However, the model that the car hire industry has been using has always insisted on new cars....

Tourism Industry. (31 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: A good quality second-hand relatively new car - I do not refer to one that is five or ten years old - would be better than no car at all if it is offered at a good rate.

Tourism Industry. (31 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: When I spoke of the survey of the costs, it was comparing capital cities. Differences will be found in price when one compares the west with parts of Scotland. Regarding the subsidies introduced several years ago, in 1992 the average payment was approximately €900 but gave only 1,260 cars extra. Even the whole value of the subsidy scheme is questionable. I am looking forward to...

Tourism Industry. (31 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: The report of the tourism renewal group, published in October 2009, set out the tourism sector's contribution to Ireland's economic and social development and its prospects in a changed world economy. It made recommendations in the form of a framework for action for tourism survival, recovery and growth from 2009 to 2013. This framework contains five survival actions to minimise the impact...

Tourism Industry. (31 Mar 2010)

Mary Hanafin: I thank Deputy Upton for her good wishes and I look forward to working with her. The real point is when are we going to implement the recommendations set out in the survival and the recovery actions. As I outlined earlier, some have been already implemented by the important agencies, such as Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland, which have the responsibility for delivering them. Some of the...