Results 2,661-2,680 of 12,318 for speaker:Paul Murphy

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: That is a different report. It is fair enough that the Minister agrees to that different report but he does not agree to this one. The wording is not entirely clear and there was some confusion when we were submitting parliamentary questions in advance of the budget. We were talking about the USC, renamed effectively as a high income social charge applying to marginal income exceeding...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Section 6 deals with mortgage interest relief. During all of the discussion on the tracker mortgages, what struck me is how the Revenue would deal with redress payments by the banks. Can it be agreed that the Revenue Commissioners will not pursue people who effectively get the benefit of mortgage interest relief when they are paid compensation at a later stage and will not attempt to claw...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I welcome the section. It is fine. I am for promoting electric cars. However, if there is any idea in the Department or the Government that the answer to reducing the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the transport sector is electric cars, then it is missing the point. Transport is the second biggest producer of greenhouse gases in Ireland. The way to reduce greenhouse emissions by...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Since 2008.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: The figures I have state that across the three branches of CIE, Government subvention is down €67 million from 2008.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Can the Minister explain the figures? Or give me the figures that he has?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I checked the figures and I think the €67 million figure was incorrect. It was meant to be 67% and that has been rounded up on the other thing. However, the figures that repeatedly come across in various discussions in the Dáil, both in the committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport and in the Dáil as a whole, refer to a total subvention to the CIE group of €321...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I move amendment No. 6:In page 13, between lines 25 and 26, to insert the following:“10. The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, bring a report on the additional revenue that could be raised by introducing new tax bands for earnings over €100,000 as follows:(a) Earnings between €100,000 and €140,000 - 50 per cent; (b) Earnings between...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: The Government likes to focus on marginal rates of tax, but the key issue for workers, be they low, middle or high-income earners, is the effective rate of tax on an overall basis. If this amendment were combined with our proposal to abolish the USC on income under €90,000, the effective rate of tax paid by even relatively high earners would still be approximately 50% or lower as...

Equality (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2017: Second Stage [Private Members] (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I think I might be sharing time, but we will see. I will take up where Deputy Sherlock left off. What the Minister of State said was incredible. His explanation that he was trying to put the prospective employee at ease beggars belief. Indeed, it beggars belief that a person would ask such questions of an interviewee, prefaced by "I should not be asking you this but...". He then went...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Is this the time to talk about the section in general or will we come back to that?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Does the Minister have a general explanation for this section?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Does the Department have an estimate of what this tax expenditure will cost?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: It will ramp up towards €10 million a year. Regarding the size of the companies, this programme applies to employees of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as defined by the European Commission. Medium-sized companies, according to the European Commission, are relatively big in an Irish context. They can have up to 250 employees. Therefore, there could be a relatively big...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I will go into an individual case of how much an individual employee, who may be relatively highly paid to be benefiting from these share options, could benefit. I have seen an example provided by Mazars which shows that someone getting €10,000 in share options at €1 per share, exercising that option when they are worth €3 per share and selling them when they are worth...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: In turn, that individual benefits to that amount but the State loses that amount in terms of-----

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: Does the Minister accept that the impact of the scheme is likely to be regressive? One could, in theory, be a low-paid employee and get share options, but it is not very likely. Those who avail of share options are more likely to be middle to higher income earners and, therefore, the effect would be regressive.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I support the amendment and agree with Deputy Doherty. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, has said the problem of the Government's inaction in the housing crisis has nothing to do with resources, ideology or money. The difference in the Government's approach to the idea of vacant sites and the help-to-buy scheme indicates that is not accurate....

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: I agree with the amendments. Does the Minister of State now agree that the tax break for properties held for at least five years should not have been included in the Finance Bill 2016? At the time it was objected to by ourselves, and possibly others, on the grounds that it encourages property hoarding as well as being a big tax break. Is there an admission that that was a mistake - not a...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Paul Murphy: There is a logical incoherence in the Minister for Finance's argument about the need for a delay in getting rid of this allowance, or whatever one wants to call it. The argument is that we need tax certainty, but there was no such need for tax certainty when it was introduced to the benefit of these vulture funds. The Government was able to introduce it immediately, but now that it is being...