Results 2,941-2,960 of 19,173 for speaker:Shane Ross

Leaders' Questions (5 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: ----- and that they will resist the taxes - through poverty and not through unwillingness - as a result of what the Government has done and what it intends to do today?

Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: The Minister for Finance is a kindly, avuncular man who is popular on all sides of the House. It was surprising, therefore, in the last two days to hear him growling in interviews when he was asked about the property tax. He has said at least twice that it is being left to the Revenue Commissioners to collect it and that the Revenue Commissioners are very good at collecting taxes. I find...

Financial Resolutions 2013 - Financial Resolution No. 15: General (Resumed) (6 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: Hear, hear.

Transport (Córas Iompair Éireann and Subsidiary Companies Borrowings) Bill 2012 [Seanad]: Second Stage (7 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: The most significant thing the Minister said in his speech this morning was that CIE, Iarnród Éireann and Bus Éireann had lodged their accounts in the Oireachtas Library in November. This Bill is an attempt to give a lifeline to CIE. We must ask why it needs a lifeline and we must ask why it lodged its accounts in November. November is inexplicably late and it is not the...

Social Welfare Bill 2012: Second Stage (Resumed) (12 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: I do not come to this debate with any strong ideological position, but I am staggered by what the Government is doing through its cuts, particularly to carers. Like many of the Members on this side of the House, I spent some time outside Leinster House yesterday and some time in my constituency this morning discussing the proposed changes and was staggered by the fact that carers are...

Confidence in the Government: Motion (Resumed) [Private Members] (12 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: If we had an audience here of the great powers of Europe - the Central Bank, the IMF, European banks and Irish bankers - perhaps the motion of confidence might be passed. There are those who applaud the Government and those great outside powers to whose tune the Government is dancing. Ms Merkel salivates every time the Taoiseach arrives in Berlin with a bouquet of roses. He goes as a...

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: I am interested in the Tánaiste's painting of the brave new dawn. It has been a bad week and a bad year for the finances of the country. In view of the fact that the Taoiseach stated yesterday there would be no wave of repossessions, which runs contrary to what was stated in the Financial Times and other global media and about which the Government is so sensitive, why has the decision...

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: It is because the troika has told the Government to do this. It will be open season on home owners in 2013 because that legislation will not plug a loophole, rather it will allow the banks to repossess at will.

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: State-owned banks are going to be used as agents, with the connivance of the Government, to put people out of their own homes on a scale not seen so far.

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: That is what the Minister for Finance has stated. In addition - this is the reason I say it will be open season on home owners - the Government has extraordinarily decided on the issue of a property tax that it will bring in the heavies to collect the money from those who are unable to pay.

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: For some reason the Revenue Commissioners have been selected as the collectors of this tax, not any other body. Why is this? The reason is that people will have the property tax which they are unable to pay deducted at source. I am not talking only about the middle classes and high and middle income earners but also about people on social welfare who will be confronted with a situation...

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: I asked the Tánaiste two questions, neither of which he answered.

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: Why is legislation going to be introduced in 2013 to give the banks a free run at homeowners? Why can the Government not take the view that this legislation is unnecessary-----

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: -----and that it would more sympathetic to homeowners if it were not introduced? Does the Tánaiste have sympathy with the view that the Revenue Commissioners have been chosen to collect the property tax because this is the only way the money involved can be extracted from people as a result of the fact that they simply cannot afford to pay? Imagine the scene that will obtain when many...

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: -----to collect this money willy-nilly because the latter will ignore the needs of the people from whom it is going to be taken.

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: This is not broadening the tax base.

Leaders' Questions (13 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: It is taking money from exactly the same people-----

Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (14 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: That is correct. I am getting very tired and very used to hearing the Government saying that this particular tax is justified on the basis that is broadening the tax base. It is doing nothing of the sort. What this tax is doing is draining those who are already empty of juice. It is hitting those in negative equity, those who have mortgage arrears, those who have already paid stamp duty,...

Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (14 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: It was selected for one reason and one reason only: because the tax cannot be collected any other way. There will be resistance to the payment of this tax on the very justifiable basis that people cannot pay it. The only way to get money out of people who cannot pay is by extortion. One extorts it quite simply by saying it is going to come out of people's pay, because they cannot pay it...

Leaders' Questions (18 Dec 2012)

Shane Ross: I note the comments the Taoiseach made to Deputy Adams on growth. My question is about the growth figures he quoted because yesterday the International Monetary Fund, IMF, had some telling things to say about the Irish economy, especially the growth figures that are emerging. Indeed, its forecast and that of the Department of Finance are very different. The IMF says growth will be 1.1%...