Results 6,681-6,700 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

Order of Business (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: What is the problem? People are paid well enough to come into the House for a few extra days.

Order of Business (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: That is about €1 billion of debt an hour.

Order of Business (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I wish to raise two issues with the Tánaiste. In September 2008, the Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Constitutional Amendment on Children issued, on behalf of that committee, an agreed statement on the need for the introduction of legislation to deal with the issue of soft information in regard to allegations of child sexual abuse. The chairperson, Deputy Mary O'Rourke, stated that...

Order of Business (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I remind the Tánaiste that the first pre-budget outlook statement was introduced on 18 October 2007. When will we receive this statement which we will need time to debate in this House? Given this year's budget decisions are of life and death importance to people throughout the country, it is poor, in terms of this House, that the Government appears to be long-fingering this important...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: The purpose of amendments Nos. 79 and 80 is very simple. They are not prescriptive in detail. They simply seek to require the Minister to establish a framework with the participating institutions in receipt of the €54 billion that will provide for a two-year moratorium on house repossessions by those institutions. I am well aware that Bank of Ireland and Allied Irish Banks have stated...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Yes, but the money the Minister is putting in is related to those debts. Can we be honest about it and say there is not a bob for businesses and home owners in the money going into either Anglo Irish Bank or Irish Nationwide? The focus is all on our two main banks, Allied Irish Banks and Bank of Ireland. The Minister is taking about quantitative easing of €54 billion, of which only...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: The Jesuits are very wise.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: We are now facing a cake that is not growing, we are facing a national cake that is shrinking. How does one ensure, therefore, that first-time buyers and small and medium enterprises continue to get their share of the national cake if we do not put protective mechanisms into the Bill? The fact is that their slice will disappear to a significant extent because they are the easiest point....

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: It is €28 billion.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: They knew when the Regulator, the Central Bank and the Department did not.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Not to mention the Jesuits.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Not to mention the Jesuits, the bakers of the cake.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: It is because the banks did not like the condition and they pulled the bell. That is the real world of banking, to be honest.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I have worked in it. I think I know how these operate.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Yet the agemcoes got everything wrong in the run-up to the crash.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: They gave triple "A" ratings to stuff that was from Mars.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I thank the Minister for his comments. I still believe the Minister is foolish not to be tougher with the banks. He has a once-off chance, although there is likely to be another opportunity when he is to put large capital injections into both banks. He is foolish not to show that he has legitimate demands on the banks to improve their act in favour of ordinary customers, small and medium...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I do not know what Dr. Dan the man does now.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: He was. He was such an optimist that I often wondered what did he take for his breakfast, because it could not just have been porridge. It must have had something extra special in it. The Minister needs to look at the totality and the composition of the banks' behaviour. They boosted the markets, but that is in the past and they have crashed. Equally, they are not necessarily being...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (5 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: If the banks owned the Minister, he would come up with many ideas about toughness.