Results 301-320 of 1,253 for speaker:John Crown
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I know we are working to a timeline and perhaps I misunderstood how the Order of Business was to run. However, there are a few points I want to make, more on the general tenor of the Bill. When I heard my colleague talk earlier about the evil markets, I was reminded of the comparethemarket.com advertisement, on which the little meerkat accused people of confusing the term "compare the...
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I have been informed we have two minutes left.
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: If I stop speaking now, will Senator Jillian van Turnhout's amendment be debated? If so, I will yield.
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: My understanding is that everything is to be guillotined at 1.30 p.m. and that no other amendments will be discussed. As this is my chance to speak, I am sorry-----
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I will gladly yield to Senator Jillian van Turnhout if her amendment can be heard.
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: Will it be heard?
- Seanad: Health Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I will skip the point I wanted to make about consultants and focus on the issue of inputs and outputs, on which I am very sympathetic to the Minister's view. There is a necessity to focus on outputs, but there are still some inputs which are being yanked up, one of which is the appointing of financial coaches to teach people in a system which we believe will be obsolete in one or two years,...
- Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2012: Committee Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I will not get involved in any recrimination, name calling or umbrage. I know the Minister is a caring person. I also know she is not an unthoughtful person. In the big spectrum of contemporary politicians she would be from a tradition that puts some thought and - to use what is considered a bad word but it should not be - "ideological" inspiration into how she acts. I am not being...
- Seanad: Social Welfare Bill 2012: Committee Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: Every public servant and every Minister should speak for themselves. Every chief executive officer in a Department in the Civil Service should be given the job in rotation once a week of taking a press conference and answering questions unspun. We should end mandatory retirement so that people who wish to continue working do not become dependent on the State. We should have a once-off...
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I am sorry that the Minister of State, Deputy Hayes, will bear the brunt of a rather testy temper on my part today.
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: Many of us who are new to politics had a rather unceremonial declaration of our political naivety this afternoon in the Social Welfare Bill and it has probably hardened our rhetoric somewhat. This idea is daft. It is straight out of Monty Python. There is a great scene in Monty Python where the black knight is on the bridge and he is charging everybody tax to cross it. This measure...
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I have been careful not to interrupt other people, Senator.
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I know we are all a little cranky this evening but-----
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: I would make the point to anybody who would have the temerity to interrupt me in my crankiness this evening that we are also the only country in Europe that charges people 9% and makes them borrow money to pay a tax to buy the house in the first place. I know of no other country that does that but we will come back to that issue another time. Of all the assets somebody could have, the only...
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: If he believes my negative equity home is a taxable asset I will gladly give it, and the mortgage, to the State. That is the ultimate-----
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: The Minister accepted an extra 4% of it last week but I am not complaining about that. I make tonnes of money and I have a house in negative equity. The logic is to charge me more income tax. I have no problem paying more money than I would pay on the property tax in income tax because that is fair. What would happen if I owned the same house but I lost my job? I would have the same tax...
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: Even if they have nothing to pay.
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: Will the Minister take up my offer to the State? The Government can have my house, as well as the negative equity mortgage, if it thinks it is a taxable asset.
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: We could work a deal on that basis.
- Seanad: Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Second Stage (19 Dec 2012)
John Crown: It should also be extended to every citizen. For many of them, their house is not an asset but a liability and they do not have the money to pay this property tax.