Results 3,981-4,000 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (18 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Minister is embarrassing Deputy Bannon.

Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (18 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Presumably, from their wages.

Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (18 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: One is dealing with the dictatorship of the financial markets.

Finance (Local Property Tax) Bill 2012: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Remaining Stages (18 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: While continuing to oppose this section and the legislation, we can certainly agree with the amendment tabled by Deputy Pearse Doherty in that it would ameliorate some of the worst injustices of the property tax. Before addressing the detail, the Minister sought to satirise the views of Deputies on the left for opposing this tax and tried to shanghai Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to the cause...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Will Mr. MacSharry or his colleagues send the information to which he referred to Deputy Boyd Barrett and me?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: We want a calculation of the cost to the bank of a write down of residential mortgages to reflect current market values.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Can Mr. MacSharry explain to his board that the reason we seek this information is that the bank's clients include a cohort of working and unemployed people who were blackmailed during the property bubble into paying extortionate rates for the basic right to have a home as a result of the outrageous racketeering, speculation and profiteering in the housing market to which Mr. MacSharry's...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: In short, there is no difference in the minds of the public interest directors between how a publicly-owned bank and a bank in full capitalist ownership should operate.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: What difference have the witnesses made as public interest directors of Permanent TSB over the past four years in the interests of the Irish people? Can they enumerate three points each which demonstrate how individually or together they have been responsible for making a significant difference to the taxpayer and the public good?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: The witnesses are tasked with addressing for the public the serious and continuing disruption to the economy and the financial system. Can Mr. MacSharry not state concretely what he has brought to bear which has made a difference and point to something would not otherwise have occurred?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does Permanent TSB provide mortgages, loans and credit cards?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion with Permanent TSB (19 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: The bank has no role with regard to small enterprises.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: It is unprecedented that Leaders' Questions would be interrupted by a point of order. That has never before been allowed in the House.

Leaders' Questions (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: A Cheann Comhairle, it is unacceptable that the Deputy Leader of the Government treats serious questions from Members on this side of the House with disdain.

Written Answers — Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: Northern Ireland Issues (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will follow up the case of a person (details supplied) with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in view of the reported cases of repeated police harassment they have been subjected to and their current incarceration on contested grounds. [57523/12]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: I put it to the public interest directors in their capacity as representatives of the ordinary citizens of the State suffering the disasters of austerity caused by the greed and profiteering of the banking and property scenes that, after four years on the board in the case of Mr. Spring and three in the case of Dr. Somers, no formal structures to make them accountable to taxpayers are in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Should there not be a formal structure for reporting at least to a Minister if not directly to the Dáil?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Is Mr. Spring still a director of Alder Capital limited?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Alder Capital is a currency speculator and has speculated heavily against the euro over a number of years, reportedly making massive profits as a result. Its co-founder Brian McCarthy boasted "we have capitalised on the weakness of the euro". Does Mr. Spring accept that there is a fundamental and fatal conflict of interest in representing the Irish people as a public interest director in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: With respect, I did not suggest Mr. Spring was on the trading floor manning the phones, but he is the chairman. According to the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010, the remit of the public interest directors is to address the serious and continuing disruption to the economy and the financial system and the continuing serious threat to the stability of certain credit institutions in...