Results 3,801-3,820 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Written Answers — Department of Health: Medicinal Products (24 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: To ask the Minister for Health if he will reverse the decision to take gluten free foods off the medical card list in view of the financial pressure this is having on some coeliacs [46686/12]

Prospects for Irish Economy: Statements (Resumed) (25 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: All the Government contributors to this debate on the Irish economy over the past two days predicated their contributions on the claim that current policies are working, that the Irish economy is turning the corner, and that we will overcome this economic crisis within a few years. That is manifestly false on even the most cursory examination of the key indicators for the Irish economy. If...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: I apologise for stepping outside briefly. If I am repeating someone else's question, please tell me that it was answered and I will move on. I do not want to waste anyone's time. I will ask a general question first. We are four or five years down the road from the crash, but I have put a question to everyone, including the troika, to which I have not received an answer. Perhaps Mr....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: I heard what Mr. Dukes stated, but I wanted to lodge a protest on behalf of taxpayers. I am sure that when Mr. Dukes lays awake at night trying to prepare for statutory requirements, etc., he sometimes muses over the morality of this situation. I will move onto residential properties. From scanning the submission, the witnesses provide the amounts. Do they have a figure for the absolute...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Can the witnesses provide the number of single homeowners this groups comprises?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Are these included in the figure of 14,000?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Are these landlords with portfolios?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: I am mainly concerned with owner occupiers, people who purchased a home in good faith when they were being blackmailed by rampant speculation in the property market but needed a home for a family. The submission states that the bank repossessed 23 properties in the six months to June 2012. What is the story in those cases? Did the owner occupiers fight the bank and did they want to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: I refer to individual mortgages, not portfolios. People were caught in an impossible situation at the height of the boom, with what are now unsustainable monthly payments because jobs have been lost. Why could IBRC, as a State-owned bank, not come up with a revolutionary approach? The solution is simple and involves reducing the value of the home to the current market value and reducing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Is it not fictional capital? The value is presumably the value at which the properties were bought, which they have not retained.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: What solutions is the bank moving towards?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: In a dissenting judgment, a Supreme Court judge more or less stated, if I have it right, in respect of the litigation between IBRC and the Quinn Group, that there were two of them in it. Will the witnesses comment in this regard? Second, I read a suggestion that the court action may move onto mediation. Will the witnesses comment on that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of IBRC: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: No comment or no move?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: What is the annual wage for the top three executives in Allied Irish Banks?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Is the salary cap approximately €500,000?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Consequently, the top three salaries must be close to €500,000.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: Members received similar information in this morning's session. However, such salaries are gigantic when one considers the €20 billion in taxpayers' funds and the crucifying austerity that is being implemented as a result of bailing out these banks and the speculators who lent to them, which is affecting the poorest and the lowest-income people in our society. How is it morally...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: With regard to lending to small and medium enterprises, I wish to approach this from a different angle. I gather, from reading the international financial press in recent months - that is, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and so on - that essentially, as far as investment is concerned, capitalism in the eurozone is in a state of paralysis. The figures that were given indicated...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: They must be going elsewhere, then, to deposit the uninvested cash. As for foreign direct investment, it is fine and obviously is an important part of the economy, but it is the domestic economy here that is getting hammered. This is the reason lending to small and medium-sized enterprises is so important. To move on quickly, a return to profitability by 2014 has been raised with Mr....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Operations and Functioning of AIB: Discussion (31 Oct 2012)

Joe Higgins: It is a Government policy anyway. For my last question, I will return to the matter of mortgages for owner-occupiers, not buy-to-let investors or speculators or all the rest of it. Mr. Duffy has set his face quite categorically against what he calls debt forgiveness. What will be his approach to the provisions of the Personal Insolvency Bill when it is enacted? Second, in his earlier...