Results 6,081-6,100 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: On 10 June 2001, Mr. McWilliams wrote on his website: A property boom transfers huge wealth from wage earners to landowners with the banks sitting in the middle facilitating the trade. Wage earners become relatively poor ... Periods of speculative excess also lead, in every country, to extraordinary disparities of wealth. The “new rich” typically have their counterpart in a...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: In an article dated 11 February 2001, Mr. McWilliams summarised how cheap credit flowing into a country can destroy it with illusions of wealth. He colourfully referred to the Spanish conquest of Latin America and the ransom which the Incas paid for their unfortunate emperor. In one week, he wrote, "the Spaniards plundered more gold [from there] than the entire continent of Europe produced...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: That is the question.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: Why would the financial markets plough money into land and speculation rather than, in Mr. McWilliams’s words, into science, technology and innovation, especially when the European Union had between 20 million to 25 million unemployed?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: I had better fast forward.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: In his written statement, Mr. McWilliams stated when one speaks against mainstream views, there are three phases, first, the open ridicule phase, second, the violent opposition phase and, third, everyone pretends they were on your side all the time phase. It reminds one that, apparently, 15 years after the Easter Rising, it would have taken Croke Park to accommodate everyone who claimed they...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: In his written statement Mr. McWilliams stated, "Had the warnings been listened to and acted on, rather than dismissed and ridiculed, it would have been possible to avoid a banking crisis". Mr. McWilliams was a media commentator and had a media platform. What role does he believe sections of the mainstream media played in the generation of the property bubble? Was the media an impartial...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: What about the media in general?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor McDonough relates the origins of the property bubble and the crash to the four institutions that he outlined - globalisation; neoliberalism; repression of labour, which he explains is a reduction in the bargaining power of workers; and financialisation. He gives his definitions of those. He also refers to falling profitability from the 1960s onwards as a feature of international...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor McDonough provided figures which show that the percentage of GDP that was going to workers fell substantially; is this related?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor McDonough cited the American economist, Gerald Epstein, who has examined the increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions and financial elites in the operation of the economy and its governing institutions at national and international levels. Why were there such significant levels of financialisation and such massive funds sloshing around...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (26 Feb 2015)

Joe Higgins: The financial markets as Professor McDonough describes them involve international financial institutions, huge banks and hedge funds. Do financial markets operate as a socially progressive factor, a factor that enhances democracy, a kind of economic dictatorship or one, more or none of the above? He described market fundamentalism as a belief that important social decisions about production...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: 3. To ask the Taoiseach when the Cabinet sub-committee on economic infrastructure and climate change last met. [3368/15]

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: I also wish to follow up on Question No. 1, which asked the Taoiseach to report on the commitment in the programme for Government on the Irish Water network. He read out what the programme for Government says on the matter but he did not answer the question. I would like him to answer the question. The programme for Government states that Irish Water "will supervise and accelerate the...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: That is the point.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: I ask the Taoiseach if he agrees that all he has achieved is the massive rejection of water charges by a huge section of the population and a massive alienation among significant sections of the population-----

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----through the use of the forces of the State against their peaceful protests.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: The question asked the Taoiseach "the position regarding the commitment in the programme for Government, in regard to the Irish Water networks; and if he will make a statement on the matter".

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: I was summarising a number of the issues that have arisen in response to this aspect of the programme for Government.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government Implementation (3 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Come on, a Cheann Comhairle, that is absolutely ridiculous.