Results 6,541-6,560 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): European Council Meetings (12 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: 44. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his discussions with the President of the European Central Bank, Mr. Mario Draghi; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8839/15]

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): European Council Meetings (12 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: 69. To ask the Taoiseach if the human rights situation in Egypt was discussed at any of the European Council meetings since December 2014; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15230/15]

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Parlon, you told the inquiry that you were headhunted by the Construction Industry Federation. Was the fact that Fianna Fáil and your party that you were a part of, and part of the Government ... was continuing on in office ... was that perceived to be a major advantage by the construction industry in lobbying terms and was that the reason why a farmer would be put in charge of the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: But do you think the fact that you would have an inside track to Government would be a big advantage in lobbying? Do you think that may or may not have been a consideration?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Gentlemen, a Maynooth NUI study found in 2010 in a report, 620 ghost estates after the crash of the bubble. Does the Construction Industry Federation have a policy of what should be done with gold estates ... ghosts estates?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Kelleher, could I ask yourself ... Mr. Frank Daly, chairman of NAMA, was very critical of the construction industry for non-compliance with regulatory standards, including fire safety standards. And we know there were some very high-profile issues with fire safety causing huge problems for the ordinary people who had bought mortgages, etc. When you were director general of the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: No, there were a number of ... I wasn't referring to anyone in particular.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Roughly, what was your annual budget in the 2000s?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes, €5 million or €6 million. Mr. Alan Ahearne, in evidence to the inquiry, said, "In a study I wrote with ... former colleagues, which was published on the [United States] Federal Reserve's website in September 2005, we identified no fewer than 44 episodes of house price booms and busts in 18 advanced countries since 1970."

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Yes. And there were other studies, late '90s, early 2000s, pointing to a well-recognised pattern of boom and then a disastrous crash. With the huge resources you had, and the capability for analysis and research, did you identify in any way the dangers that was happening with the blowing up of the bubble that was going on and what might follow from it?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Davitt, does the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers have a position on the requirements regarding deposits for mortgages from both the borrower and the economy generally?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Can you tell us?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: And what would your recommendation be?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Do you have a figure that you recommend in regard to the percentage?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Okay. Mr. Davitt, you said in your opening statement that:IPAV [the Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers] believes such a body, [you're referring to a national property council] which would have a purely advisory role, would have the potential to play an enormous part in helping build a sustainable property market, bringing about stability and avoiding future troughs and peaks,...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: The ... you say in page 7 of your testimony that the institute, "...makes regular submissions to Joint Oireachtas Committees where useful exchanges of views regularly take place", and you have made budget submissions.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Now, can I ask you, Mr. Davitt, if during the 2000s, when house prices for first-time buyers especially, were shooting up by anybody's standard, and where research shows that between 1996 and 2006, the price of an ordinary home went up each year by the equivalent of the average industrial wage, which was a huge figure, and a huge imposition on the people who were now suffering the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Do you think ... was that a failure by the institute or not, that it didn't intervene when it might seem obvious to many people that things were becoming completely unsustainable in the sense that first-time buyers being forced to go for 35 or even 40 year mortgages at unsustainable levels? Should your institute have intervened?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Cullen in his opening statement to the inquiry, as I see it, sums up the role of the audit to check about the financial position, financial performance and cash flows of an entity that is useful to a wide range of users in making economic decisions and in that sense, that it's tight and limited according to regulations and law. Would that be a fair representation of...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (13 May 2015)

Joe Higgins: There has been a lot of comment on the role of auditors in relation to the period of bubble and bust. And just to try and understand, we get people watching us from the stand and indeed, myself. Let me just put this short analogy to you and ask you if you think it's fair or not. So a patient comes to a GP for a heart check and a blood pressure check. Doctor checks the two ... "You're...