Results 4,041-4,060 of 7,412 for speaker:Neasa Hourigan
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Okay. I want to move presently to the council's paper on the Commission on Taxation and Welfare.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Is that possible? I presume this operates like indexation insofar as it is not binding but rather is a benchmark. Is that the way Mr. Barnes envisages it in legislation?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: That is interesting. I think of Irish Governments as particularly resistant to anything that constrains their political power in terms of budgets, but that is a good point. Staying with that issue the council's submission refers to the Government’s forecasting three years ahead. Obviously, this committee has been tasked with that medium-term budgeting of three to five years ahead....
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: To be clear, is Mr. Barnes saying he cannot see a plan in place or, not to be too cynical, is it possible that there is only a three-year plan in place?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: I want to come to Sláintecare in a minute.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Of how you were going to make up that €2 billion.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: IFAC cannot see the steps along the pathway to get to where we want to be. Mr. Barnes mentioned the spending review process, which could be more in-depth. Does that interact with the planning aspect or is it purely retrospective?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Even the methodology by which we look for value for money is problematic, particularly regarding climate when it comes to things like time horizons. Who would do that?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Is it annualised or ongoing?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: It is very concerning.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: To be clear, IFAC does not know what has been spent to date or the cost of full implementation. Keep going.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: We only have one year into the future of what they will spend.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: IFAC is following the money. We are following some of the service programming. I can see regional teams are being set up but no serious devolution is happening. You would expect money to follow devolution.
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: I will not keep going on that issue because the witnesses have answered that it is as opaque to them as to me. This is slightly outside the scope of today's session but since it was provided I will go to paper on the Commission on Taxation and Welfare. It is relevant to our discussion of medium-term planning. I enjoyed the paper's bottom-up and top-down approach. That is helpful to us....
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: The witnesses are not the experts on this, but would that require a large investment in ICT?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Do we have the data and just not make them accessible or do we not collate them?
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: Speaking as a member of the Joint Committee on Health, its extent is considerable. According to the next paragraph in the witnesses' submission, the Government should take up the commission's work and do a deep dive on it. The Government should take the main policy options set out by the commission and do ready reckoners on them. Obviously, the Government has access to that information....
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: I take the witnesses' point that not only is it difficult to understand what effects on revenue these taxes or changes in welfare would have, but also how they would interact with one another. In the course of our previous sessions and this meeting, we have discussed EU norms and what other countries are doing. It seems that, like every country, Ireland's tax system does better in some...
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: How to calibrate them to ensure-----
- Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (30 Nov 2022)
Neasa Hourigan: I am sorry, but we need to conclude. Would Mr. Barnes expect the Department of Finance to undertake that work?