Results 3,541-3,560 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I appreciate that. If we shut down this option we could double the fiscal space next year. It is a very material issue. I thank the Chairman.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Minister.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I appreciate that.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank Mr. Howard and the Minister. I am sorry to hear Revenue's position. At this point Revenue should be able to give some sort of a scale. A very small number of companies are involved in this matter. About ten companies have bought practically all of the NAMA assets, these vulture funds and most of them have now released their accounts. As an example, Cerberus took in interest...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes. How can we ensure that the Oireachtas does not vote through an amendment to the Finance Act that allows these companies to mark their assets to current market value? It is something that is not afforded to any other individual or company in this country. I refer to years of capital gains being ignored. How can we make sure that the Finance Act does not just apply to property? If it...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Minister.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Revenue Raising Proposals: Minister for Finance and Revenue Commissioners (20 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: On section 110, Mr. Howard alluded to some advice he had received regarding the mark-to-market clause. I appreciate he cannot share the Attorney General's legal advice. I ask the Minister and/or his departmental officials and the Revenue officials to provide to the committee whatever rationale they have on the existing amendment. It sounds as if they have a rationale on mark to market....

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I welcome the Minister and his officials. Before I get into some of the aggregate figures, I want to mention four segments for consideration. The first is the voluntary sector and specifically section 38 organisations. As the Minister is aware, workers in section 38 and section 39 organisations took the same public sector pay cuts and more, but they have not had any restoration. The...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I do not think so.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: Can I come back on that one?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: On that point, we will have to agree to disagree. It is not credible for the State to say that while it provides 100% of the funding for essential services which are provided by voluntary organisations in the community, the wages have nothing to do with the State because the employees of those organisations are not public sector employees. They obviously do. During the recession, serious...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Minister. That leads me very well to my next question.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: Yes, please.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: The history of regulation from ComReg is atrocious. It may be that we will learn how to regulate better, but I doubt it. I move to the next question I have which is around the balance. There has been a great deal of focus on the €1 billion fiscal space and the €660 million that comes under the Minister's consideration. Less time is given to the other 99% of public spending,...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Current and Capital Expenditure: Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (21 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Minister and wish to respond briefly to what he has said. On the indexation point, I agree with the Minister. I do not think it should be automatic and that is not the point I was making. I believe it is a political decision, so we are agreed on that. The point I was making is that, regardless of whether it is an annual budgetary decision, the figures we have from IFAC clearly...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (22 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: The Minister is very welcome and I thank her for her time. I have several questions that span a few different areas so I ask her to bear with me. Her brief is a wide one. There is a lot of talk about what we should spend more money on, be it money from the fiscal space, Supplementary Estimates or whatever. Now that the Minister has had a reasonable amount of time in the Department,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (22 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: To clarify, I did not suggest that less be spent. That was not the question. Across all the activity, while some things clearly are going very well, inevitably other programmes probably are not. Are there areas in which the Minister thinks we should spend less or indeed stop? There then would be the potential ability to reallocate those moneys to more effective areas within the Department.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (22 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: I apologise to the Minister but the question I asked was whether there is any measurement of client satisfaction for the LEOs.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (22 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: Is that in additional funding?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Vote 32 - Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation (22 Sep 2016)

Stephen Donnelly: Can the Minister repeat those figures?