Results 2,161-2,180 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Seanad: Homelessness: Statements (3 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister. We all wish him every success in bringing his talents and energies to dealing with this problem. I am delighted he is tackling the slow turnover of local authority houses when they become vacant. A former Minister of State with responsibility for housing, Deputy Penrose, was examining derelict sites. I do not know whether he is any help in getting sites for...

Seanad: Homelessness: Statements (3 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Hear, hear.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Business of Joint Committee
General Scheme of Sale of Loan Books to Unregulated Third Parties Bill 2014: Discussion (3 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: The documents from the Department state the proposed legislation will achieve borrowers maintaining the same regulatory protections that they had prior to the sale of their loans. That is very strong language for public servants to use. I believe we should enforce the contracts lock, stock and barrel, as Mr. Paul Joyce said. So what if a bank sold a tracker mortgage to, say, someone who...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Business of Joint Committee
General Scheme of Sale of Loan Books to Unregulated Third Parties Bill 2014: Discussion (3 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Perhaps the Free Legal Advice Centres would like to suggest amendments that I could usefully propose in the Seanad. The use of words like "will", "can" and "may" comes up quite regularly.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2014: Second Stage (4 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Nash. In a general sense, our budgetary process has not fallen under the reform agenda that we all agreed to implement in 2011. A large number of measures, the costs and benefits of which and the analysis of who pays, growth effects and displacement effects are not known, are laid before us. This is almost a Finance Bill debate of 50 or 60 years ago....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report - November 2014: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (4 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I welcome the visitors. Their role is valuable because we have a clientelist political system and massive rent seeking up and down the Exchequer - the Niskanen bureaucracy. Some voice telling us that we have to balance the books on the odd occasion is valuable because the forces that led us over a cliff in 2008 have not gone away. As a Member of the Parliament in the three years since...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report - November 2014: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (4 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: In respect of the strategic banking corporation, the Minister took an amendment to the articles of association that its activity should operate in a counter-cyclical way. Our amendment ruled out the building industry because we have done that before. Some of it is incorporated in the articles of association. I think the Minister for Finance took it to some meeting of finance Ministers in...

Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2014: Second Stage (15 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I welcome the Minister to the House. I remember when the Minister was here in his previous capacity as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport that we had a valuable debate on what it meant when people were reported as having no driving licence - did it mean they did not appear in court for the licence or that they disguised it from the Garda? That...

Seanad: Order of Business (16 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I ask the Leader to arrange a debate on the macro financial problems illustrated in the Central Bank report today, particularly in the property sector. The loan to values from 80% to 95% are running far in excess of what they were in the past decade. This is what the 80% loan to value proposal from the Central Bank was designed to correct. The 20% deposit which would be the remainder is...

Seanad: Road Traffic (No. 2) Bill 2014: Second Stage (16 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: It is a very important matter, as the Minister indicated. Motoring is an activity that used to kill more than 600 people per year. We will probably get the fatality figure down to 200 this year, compared with the figure of a little over 160 in our best year. We must keep the legislation up to date with what is happening. The Minister indicated that a commencement order was not signed and...

Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I agree with the Minister that health insurance companies should be allowed to insist on people taking the treatment as sanctioned by the NCPE rather than spend excessive money. Senator Crown’s case does, however, infringe the basic foundations on which this area operates, open enrolment lifetime cover and community rating. In the example he gave, somebody is refused cover and is...

Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2014: Committee Stage (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I second what Senator Crown has said. The medical argument against smoking is unassailable at this stage. All recent Ministers for Health have endorsed that. The amendment attaches a penalty to a health-damaging factor. It is easily verified as people on renewing their premium can show that they have not been smoking. It tackles the moral hazard problem that if one does not smoke, one...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Mr. Nyberg and thank him for his informative presentation and all the help he has given us today. On page 71 of his report, he refers to briefing notes prepared by the Department of Finance for the Minister in 2007 which sought to refute warnings made by Professor Morgan Kelly regarding the housing market. Has Mr. Nyberg seen those documents?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Can Mr. Nyberg give a summary of what was contained in those speaking notes?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Mr. Nyberg says on page 97 that he found the Department of Finance to be "seriously underweight in professional financial expertise and engagement". That is the view I would attach to its criticisms of Professor Morgan. Mr. Nyberg also refers in the report to the Department's lack of documentation. It seems the one thing the officials decided to write was a critique of Professor Kelly. On...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: It is bizarre. This is first year economics. They are the lenders of last resort but they thought they had no role to address stability issues within individual banks.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Chairman. On page 65, the report states that the commission did not engage with regulators in other jurisdictions in regard to foreign banks coming to this country. We all wish to have measures in place to prevent a recurrence of the banking crisis. Should we not have partaken in that type of engagement by opening up contacts, for instance, with countries like Canada and...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Finland is a small country like Ireland which, also like us, joined the euro when many of its trading partners and neighbour countries did not. From his experience, does Mr. Nyberg see any lessons from Finland that would help this inquiry?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: Thank you. We appreciate it. I would like to repeat a quote that the Chairman read recently: The CB was not powerless; it had the right to direct the activities of the FR and it could advise the Government. There are, however, no records of such direction or advice or even efforts at such.Were there any board members in the Central Bank who held the view, which might be shared by Mr....

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (17 Dec 2014)

Sean Barrett: The quote I have read states that there are "no records of such directions or advice or even efforts at such".