Results 2,761-2,780 of 6,295 for speaker:Michael D'Arcy

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: You've no idea, Mr. McCreevy. He was, for a long time, in his articles inThe Irish Timeswriting about the narrowing of the tax base, most of which happened upon your period in Finance.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: The narrowing of the tax base. The Chairman spoke about the cyclical taxes. Now you can count whichever taxes you wish to be cyclical or counter-cyclical. The narrowing of the tax base, the reduction in the wealth taxes, the capital gains taxes, the transaction taxes and then the decreasing of the income tax. Was he correct then and were you wrong?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (1 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Can I ask you in relation to your period in Finance about expenditure. In 1997, the expenditure, total capital and current, was €18.8 billion. Seven years later, it was almost €41 billion. Again the Chairman touched upon it but I'm touching upon it now. A lot of it was based upon taxes that were going to come from the property sector, so long as the property sector kept...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Cowen, you are welcome. Tom Considine, former Secretary General of the Department of Finance, in previous evidence, stated the political pressure to ease up on what was seen as expenditure cuts was very strong. You made a recommendation to the Department, Mr. Cowen, to add an additional €900 million on top of existing costs to the Estimates for the upcoming...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Mr. Cowen, the FSR reports, you've addressed them on a number of occasions. You've also stated that there were attachments not just a report. When the reports were presented, were they presented to you or were you just given an executive summary?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: How did you rate them? Did you rate them highly or lowly? What was your view in relation to them?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Can I ask you to bring up the FSR reports?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: 2004. If you would allow me, Mr. Cowen, because this is a line of questioning I have used previously in relation to household personal indebtedness. Starting with your period and this is in real time, this isn't subsequent reports from Mr. Honohan or Nyberg or others. The household indebtedness was in the first report itemised as an issue. Subsequently, in '05, '06 and, culminating in the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: But the vast majority is mortgage.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Should you have done more? Should you have intervened further?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Were other tools available to you as the Minister for Finance?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Could you have considered a property tax at that stage to cool the market? On your watch, Mr. Cowen, the State went from, a level of indebtedness, from below the European average to the highest in the OECD.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: I understand that. Could you have considered other methods of taxation to cool the market?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Can I ask, Mr. Cowen, if you saw the evidence from Mr. Dan McLaughlin when he presented a number of months ago and he made the point that it was, in particular, the commercial real estate sector that did the most damage than any other sector. I mean, there's a lot of conversation about residential mortgages but that Anglo Irish Bank, which would eventually cost the state in the region of...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: At what stage were those large exposures ... were you in finance, or had you left finance by the time it-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: You had left finance. Can I ... final question, Chairman.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Mr. Cowen, you said that the liquidity crisis was the reason why the cyclical taxes collapsed. I took that note, that that's what you said.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Can I ask you that ... or can I put it to you that other countries had liquidity crises just like ourselves, but our collapse was much more pronounced than everybody else's. Could you explain that to me, please?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: And then the last question, Mr. Cowen, did you ever ask the NTMA to place funds within the NTMA in a particular bank?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)

Michael D'Arcy: Mr. Cowen, thank you for coming back. Another couple of hours will do you. Did I hear correctly previously when you said you didn't have a financial adviser at the Deportment of Finance?