Results 321-340 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: If he checks the record, he will find that low rate was agreed and signed off during Ireland's Presidency.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: The Minister likes to have history only according to Fianna Fáil. He has sold the message of low marginal rates of tax, but the bulk of PAYE taxpayers pay high marginal rates of tax.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: The Minister's officials will tell him that low rate was signed off by Deputy Quinn when he was Minister for Finance during Ireland's Presidency of the European Union in 1996. I am sure the Minister's officials can probably provide him with a note of those proceedings and agreements.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: At that stage there was a zero manufacturing tax rate for most companies involved in manufacturing and the rate was reduced to a joint common rate as a consequence of EU changes. The purpose of this amendment is to introduce some fairness and equity for the ordinary man and women who work day in day out, live in the commuter belt around Dublin, pay one mortgage, pay the equivalent of another...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: I apologise, I thought I said Fine Gael.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: It was ruled out of order.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: It would be interesting to extend the statistical exercise, with which the Minister's officials supplied him, to include the incidence of indirect taxation in the period of statistical analysis to which he referred. He said that he attends EU ECOFIN meetings. I am sure his officials are aware that when one takes the more complete picture, when one includes the impact of indirect taxation on...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: The VAT rate was increased in the budget before last. What is the Minister talking about? Does he not remember that?

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: What the Minister had to say was interesting. He approved of every piece of largesse by Government in recent years. The only thing he did not approve of was the notion that working class children, whose parents did not have a high income, should look a well-off person's children in the eye as they walked in the gates of Trinity College and had free access to university education. The Minister...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: Everything has a cost. It is interesting that the Minister has defended and made a cogent argument as to why the well-off should be even better off. If the Minister looks at the statistics from Patrick Clancy and others on who went to college before the introduction of free tuition fees at university level, the tax covenants that were available only to the wealthy — the Minister will...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: A bus driver's children could not go to college because their income was too high for a grant whereas somebody on farming income — and I say good luck to them because I think they should get it — could vary their income when their children were coming up to college age and they would get a grant. To add to that, the people who were really well-off could take out a covenant. The cost of...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: ——who were paying no tax.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: It may have been RTE getting him wrong again. I think it was the Minister's sentiments that were being described.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: Fine. The Taoiseach and the Tánaiste both said to me, from where the Minister is now sitting, that they do not find it acceptable. They think it is not acceptable that people on an income of more than €200,000 should pay no contribution. This does not really excite the Minister's disapproval; what excites his disapproval is the most important measure to open up access to third level...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: ——in Irish society to say that opening up third level education to children of all backgrounds——

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: ——is wrong.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: I find it odd. I invite the Minister and his officials to look at Professor Clancy's work, which shows how access has been opened up. I refer to the CIE bus supervisor. That person's children were not able to access third level education but they are now able to do so. Like free secondary education, this has been one of the best steps forward this country has taken. I am sure the Minister...

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: I ask the Minister to give way. He should not put words in my mouth as I have never criticised that decision.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: The Minister raised qualms about the notion of free third level undergraduate fees. I do not care what issue he was replying to but it was he who raised the issue of fees.

Finance Bill 2005: Report Stage (Resumed). (9 Mar 2005)

Joan Burton: I do not know if the Minister had an opportunity to celebrate International Women's Day yesterday, although I gather from his gesture that he missed the chance.