Results 6,801-6,820 of 40,550 for speaker:Joan Burton

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I thank the Deputy for his kind comments.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I am glad we got the Minister to do some work.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I can only conclude that the Minister is being deliberately oblique in his reply. There is a very significant difference between where a physical asset or land bank is located and where the company or the entity that owns that land bank may be located for tax and administrative purposes. One of the reasons President Obama, following his election, was so intent on the point is that in the...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Does the Minister not remember Ansbacher?

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Has the Minister wiped the Fianna Fáil memory disk clean of what took place in respect of the Ansbacher accounts? Those loans were off-shore but all the money was in Dublin and Ireland, circulating to the Fianna Fáil head honchos, who had their own little scheme. That was disclosed by numerous tribunals and inquiries. It is a real Fianna Fáil trick to pretend they never heard of this...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I welcome the amendment and the comments of Deputy Gogarty because this amendment was put forward by the Labour Party to provide a context in which proper planning and development could inform any decisions of NAMA and be taken into account. In practice it will be very difficult to realise because it will be genuinely difficult to achieve proper planning and development in the aftermath of...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: It is more than that. When one visits a hotel——

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: The former President, Ms Mary Robinson, and President McAleese feature to some degree. However, that is in the ha'penny place compared to the glowing photos of such people as Deputy Bertie Ahern.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: The point is proper planning and development did not apply in respect to may of these hotels. Some hotels have been in the country for generations and families work in these hotels. There are very fine hotels but some of them are under very serious threat. More and more hotels were built, driven by the tax breaks, to the extent where there is now a very significant surplus of hotel rooms....

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: Section 12(2)(ac) makes provision for carrying on "any business that NAMA considers can be conveniently carried on in connection with any of its functions or is calculated directly or indirectly to enhance the value of or facilitate the realisation of or render profitable any of NAMA's property or rights". The Peter Bacon report on hotels found that up to 20,000 hotel rooms should be closed....

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: No, the Acting Chairman should peruse paragraph (ac).

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: The amendment pertains to paragraph (ac).

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: No, it is not. As Deputies Gogarty and Cuffe have indicated, it ties in the approach advocated by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. What is the position on proper planning and development in respect of surplus hotels and private medical institutions which were constructed on the basis of tax breaks rather than medical considerations? The National Treatment...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I am not sure that is a compliment.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I ask the Minister to respond to the issues I raised regarding paragraph (ac), including the ability to carry on business and whether there has been any advance on the draft plan. These are important matters.

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: A finance committee was not included in the original structure. The National Asset Management Agency will have to operate on commercial business grounds. Given that finance and budgetary plans are the core of a business, it would be highly unusual not to have the full board involved in these areas. Audit, credit and risk management have specific, defined functions in banking. However,...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I thank the Minister of State for his reply. It is intriguing that someone who was one of the architects of social partnership and would have great expertise in social partnership participation in various public boards would have made this proposal. From the material I have read about FÁS, one of its downfalls is that matters were shoved into sub-committees and because its executive was so...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: I am happy to support Deputy O'Donnell's amendment No. 1 to Seanad amendment No. 9. We have argued at great length that a vetting procedure should be provided for, preferably through an Oireachtas committee. The obvious candidates would be the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service and the Joint Committee on Economic Regulatory Affairs, although it may be possible in certain...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: This is one of the most critical sections of the Bill because it is through this mechanism that the amounts NAMA will pay for certain loans, assets and so on can be jacked up to any number one might think of given that the two valuation principles are economic value and long-term economic value. I listened to Deputy Mulcahy say how much he expected property values to rise and rise. There...

National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009: From the Seanad (12 Nov 2009)

Joan Burton: The powers provided to the Minister regarding the valuations and the valuation panel are seriously excessive and they constitute a significant threat that NAMA will overpay for assets. I was struck by the many contributions Deputy Fahey made on various Stages in which he expressed supreme confidence that the value of assets held in the US and the UK, for example, would increase rapidly. His...