Results 3,541-3,560 of 6,295 for speaker:Michael D'Arcy

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: I will give the Minister of State the information. If he could visit the area, there would be no better example anywhere. The problem is that, for anybody to protect his or her property, he or she must break the law. The local authority would then have to prosecute him or her for breaking the law.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: Yes, even in an emergency. It would not matter. For anything to happen, European legislation must be broken. What is required is a derogation in that unique set of circumstances, but it has not been achieved or looked for. I ask the Minister of State to progress that issue, but there is no point in progressing it if it will take seven years to get an answer.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: The Senator sounds a little like me.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: There are also questions to the Minister for Finance in the Dáil and the Committee of Public Accounts is meeting next door.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: What is the Minister's opinion on the gardaí pretending not to be striking? Does he have an opinion on it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: I understand that. I do not wish to labour the point but the Garda Representative Association, GRA, has said the gardaí are going on strike but it is pretending it is not a strike. That is clearly illegal. It is clearly a challenge to the senior management of An Garda Síochána. One can dress it and spin it, and some members of the GRA have done quite a good job on that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: Does the Minister see it as a challenge to the Garda Commissioner's authority?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: I will leave it at that. On the last occasion the Minister appeared before the committee, I tried to probe the numbers of staff who work for the State. The Minister gave them just before I arrived, so I probably missed them. However, I wish to compare the number of people now with the number at the peak of the boom. The figure I am seeking is the number who are working now and who are on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: Does the Minister have the number of retired civil and public service staff who are currently on pension?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: The Minister can give it to me when he finds it. The Minister said previously that we will now spend more or less the same amount as we spent in 2007.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: The capital spend is significantly reduced.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: The Minister gave a figure of €1.4 billion for pay restoration. What I am trying to reconcile, and it is not an ideological reconciliation but just a matter of fact, is that we are spending as much now as we were in 2008. We have taken a huge number of people out of the tax net. There are a number of issues on which politics and politicians are hooked. Some want to get rid of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: While I accept that taxation does not fall within his brief, the Minister indicated that the Government expects revenue from income tax to reach €19 billion in 2017. Income tax receipts stood at €13.5 billion in 2007. Clearly, therefore, income tax revenue has increased by a sizeable amount. A single person moves into the higher income tax rate on earnings of €33,800,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: Income from corporation tax was a couple of billion euro higher than anticipated. The amount of national debt we have to service is €4 billion lower than anticipated owing to the quantitative easing programme being pursued by the European Central Bank. I am criticising the position in which we find ourselves, rather than the Minister, when I point out that single earners start to pay...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: I understand that and great credit is due for reducing the debt to GDP ratio to a level nobody would have believed possible four or five years ago. At that time, Greek style figures of 125% and 130% were being bandied about. The debt to GDP ratio had declined to between 70% and 80% and continues to fall rapidly. Deputy Murphy wants pay restoration and does not want anyone on lower incomes...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: When one considers the figures in light of all the requests and statements being made, I fear we will have another 1977 style bubble. I am speaking to some extent against party policy in saying that we cannot go there.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: I am glad that is the case. The reason I am pursuing this matter is that I am worried.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: Motor tax and other tax measures were also abolished.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Estimates for Public Services 2016: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (29 Sep 2016)

Michael D'Arcy: The garden is not as rosy as many people anticipated it would be.