Results 6,221-6,240 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

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

Joe Higgins: Our inquiry research team has shown on hard data that between 1996 and 2006, the price of an ordinary home increased each year for ten years by the equivalent of the average industrial wage. By common consent there was rampant profiteering in the housing market and in speculation on building land. Did Mr. O'Regan ever launch a project of investigative journalism to uncover the rampant...

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

Joe Higgins: What was known was the massive increase in house prices and rampant speculation in building land, including by people who got some of the glittering awards from INM. Did the group ever launch a project of investigative journalism to uncover the level of profiteering and how it impacted very negatively on a young generation of people trying to buy homes?

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

Joe Higgins: Did the newspaper ever try to get to the heart of who was profiteering among the developers and the bankers?

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

Joe Higgins: Substantial advertising revenues came in toThe Irish Timesfrom property developers, commercial and home builders and so forth between 2002 and 2008. Would Ms Donovan have a rough estimate of how much money was taken in from that kind of advertising?

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

Joe Higgins: I ask Ms Donovan to give us a rough figure, in the millions, for what came in during those six years. We do not have time to go into each year, unfortunately.

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

Joe Higgins: How much in 2006?

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

Joe Higgins: That would nearly be €100 million over five or six years.

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

Joe Higgins: In any case, it is tens of millions of euro.

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

Joe Higgins: Ms Kennedy knows that before political parties were subject to limits on the donations they could receive, beef barons, property developers and banks made substantial donations to them. Those same political parties loudly protested that those donations had absolutely no effect on their policies or how they might deal with issues in Government but nobody believed them. Should they believe...

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

Joe Higgins: The research that the inquiry team has done found that between 1996 and 2006, the price of an ordinary home increased each year, over ten years, by the equivalent of the average industrial wage. These were astonishing increases, resulting in a young generation being skewered economically by what was going on in the property market. Mortgage payments were shooting up...

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

Joe Higgins: For example in-----

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

Joe Higgins: In 2006 the price of an average new home in Dublin was €375,000. Did Ms Kennedy conduct an investigation on how much of that would be for bricks, mortar, labour and by common consent a substantial amount, perhaps 50%, for profit as well? Does she ever remember-----

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

Joe Higgins: My last question is in relation to how Ms Kennedy covered the aftermath of the property bubble. Research by Dr. Julien Mercille, who appeared before the committee yesterday, found a strong preference for fiscal consolidation or austerity policies in The Irish Times. For example, his research outlined that 57% of all opinion articles and editorials in The Irish Timesdiscussing Irish...

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

Joe Higgins: Does Ms Kennedy dispute the figures and the percentages that he outlined in terms of the support for----

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

Joe Higgins: But Ms Kennedy said that his contribution was not facts based and now she says she does not know.

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

Joe Higgins: Yes. In other words, Ms Kennedy supports it. Did she support then the bailout of the financial markets rather than the people who were victims?

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

Joe Higgins: How is that balanced journalism?

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

Joe Higgins: I refer to those programmes that have been mentioned, such as "I’m An Adult, Get Me Out Of Here", "House Hunters" etc. One of those programmes was presented by a person who was the managing director of a property finance company and was a mortgage broker. In the course of those programmes, he would have been encouraging people to go out and buy, for example, just...

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

Joe Higgins: There were other programmes including "House Hunters" and "House Hunters in the Sun". The presenter of the former programme, in a web chat on RTE's website in May 2007, wrote "... buy now, buy if you can ... Supply in property is currently outweighing demand and there could be deals to be done". She also wrote, "My advice is to buy now ... should the next government abolish stamp duty for...

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

Joe Higgins: They came from a web chat on RTE's website in May 2007.