Results 361-380 of 483 for speaker:Edward Timmins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: I thank the Chair, and I thank the witnesses for coming before us. I have four questions. The first relates to fraud generally. Mr. O'Connor can decide whether it is answerable. My question comes from my own work experience dealing with transfers of funds. Does the NTMA have a system of making telephone call confirmations in all cases of drawdown requests? I know it is often done by US...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: That is the first one. We will do them one by one.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: I have just one simple question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: When someone makes a capital call or a request for funds to be transferred from the NTMA to a third party, does someone pick up the phone and ask the question, "Was it you who made that request?" This is a simple control.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: Is it not done as a rule?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: I would suggest that it is a very simple and a very effective control to be done 100% of times, certainly over values of €5,000.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: That is not a clear answer but I understand what Mr. O'Connor is saying.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: A "Yes" or a "No". In 100% of cases where someone does a transfer request - let us say over €10,000 - does that trigger a phone call from the NTMA to that supplier, yes or no?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: My next question pertains to interest charges and how we are trying to reduce the national debt. We are trying to reduce interest charges over the coming years. When the Minister for Finance was here a few weeks back I pointed out that in the multi-year expenditure plan 2030 prepared by the Government, the interest charge for 2030 was €5.3 billion compared to €3.1 billion in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: I understand that. They might be slightly different from what we were led to believe but Mr. O'Connor does not disagree with the €5.3 billion to 2030.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: Generally, Mr. O'Connor talks about long-term investments. One of the weaknesses of our infrastructure plans is that a lot of State bodies require certainty on long-term capital projects of ten or 20 years. Can the NTMA contribute to giving certainty on the financing of infrastructure projects for the long term of five, ten or 15 years?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Engagement with the NTMA on Matters Relating to its Operation (22 Jul 2025)

Edward Timmins: Reference was made to the State Claims Agency and the number of cases outstanding - some 15,000 or thereabouts - with 4,000 being resolved in one year. This just seems quite slow. Is there a way of expediting these? Does the NTMA have any strategies to expedite the processing of claims?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: We are kidding ourselves if we think the insurance companies are going to find some generosity. They want to maximise their profits with their shareholders. That is a non-runner. We could examine their overheads and see that they are paying themselves massive salaries, paying out big dividends and so on, but that is not going to get us anywhere. Competition is the challenge and the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: What is the incentive for the broker to get a reduced premium? I do not see one.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: The Government published a 30-page action plan on insurance reform in July. What is the witnesses' opinion of that? Did they have input into that? Do they think it is a good document? I guess they will probably say it needs follow-up as they said at the beginning. What are their thoughts on that document?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: It may be an opportunity for us to promote competition at EU level when we have the Presidency. Have the witnesses done benchmarking on comparable awards in European countries? Do they have information on that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: There are figures published somewhere that someone can send to us.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: I do not know the percentage that insurance comprises of the overheads of a small business but I would imagine it is 3%, 4% or 5%. Would that be fair enough to say? The Government is seeking to promote small businesses. In hospitality, it reduced the VAT from 13.5% to 9%, effectively adding in the order of 4% to their bottom line. If we could reduce insurance premiums by something...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: Why is that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Insurance Matters: Engagement with the Alliance for Insurance Reform (17 Sep 2025)

Edward Timmins: Mr. Jennings mentioned the leverage the Government might have and the pension reforms. Will Mr. Jennings elaborate on that point about leverage?