Results 7,001-7,020 of 8,015 for speaker:Jonathan O'Brien

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: It concerned the Family Links programme.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Will she provide us with a note in the near future about when the Irish Prison Service proposes to roll it out?

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Absolutely.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I echo that. It is an excellent programme that will help reduce reoffending and maintain those family links, particularly for prisoners serving lengthy sentences, which are anything between one year and eight years, as the Irish Prison Service categorises them. Will Ms McCaffrey give me a note on it? I do not want to put anybody on the spot, but is there a reason it is not being rolled...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I meant to ask about mental health. We know that 20 to 30 individuals are waiting to be admitted to the Central Mental Hospital. Is there a waiting list of prisoners awaiting a consultation with a psychologist within the Irish Prison Service? There are people in my area who are on a waiting list to see a psychologist or psychiatrist. Is the situation in the prison system similar? Are...

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: That is where the waiting period could come in.

Public Accounts Committee: 2017 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 21 - Prisons (17 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Will Ms McCaffrey give us a note on that because I know an assessment is done on intake? If somebody is being referred, what is the waiting period? I know that in some areas, such as HSE south, there is a longer waiting period to access services. I do not know if Ms McCaffrey has the data on a prison-by-prison basis but if she has, could she give them to us so we can see whether some...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Can I suggest, if the members are agreeable, that we take the opening statements as read because I have to be in the Chamber shortly?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I will be be leaving at 5 p.m. but will be back at approximately at 5.25 p.m.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I apologise because I had to step out of the meeting so if I ask a question that has already been asked, please tell me and we will move on and I can get the answer from the transcripts later. Take me through the process. The witnesses referred to the relief that was introduced this year for landlords - is that classed as a tax expenditure? Take me through how we even come to that stage...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Would that have been a decision of the Minister? Does it get recommended to him?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: It was pitched to us as a measure to try to encourage individual smaller landlords rather than landlords with multiple properties to stay in the market. I presume that would have been the basis of the policy decision at that time. Mr. Cullen said that the Department moved to the initial design, the impact analysis and all that. On that point, was any analysis done on how effective it would...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Is it considered a tax expenditure or is it considered as part of the tax benchmarking?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Does Revenue share that view?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: In relation to various methods, I note that everyone uses the initial revenue foregone method. I will ask a question I put to the Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO, before the witnesses came in. The second method in the PBO paper was the revenue forgone method, which looks at behavioural analysis. There is a difficulty around trying to cost that. The PBO said that other countries look at...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I agree with that, as did the PBO. However, its representatives stated that there may be individual tax expenditures for which the final revenue forgone could be estimated. I was just wondering if we did that with any of our tax expenditures. We do not do so.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: Yes, of course.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I am glad the Chairman made that point because, obviously, if we give a tax expenditure to a certain cohort of people, everyone pays for it. This brings me to the 2016 report by Revenue's statistics and economic research branch. I refer to the analysis in 2016 of high-income individuals' restriction, in which it is explained that measures were introduced to cut back on some of the reliefs...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: I was looking at this report, which gives a list of all the reliefs and the amount for each relief being claimed. By far the biggest one was reference No. 47, carry forward of excess relief. It was claimed by 346 individuals-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Scrutiny of Tax Expenditures: Discussion (22 Jan 2019)

Jonathan O'Brien: -----and, of the €149 million, cost us in excess of €97 million. It seems a pretty high figure. Will the witnesses give me a brief explanation of what is meant by "carry forward of excess relief"? If one does not use up all one's relief in one year, does it carry forward to the next year and can one keep doing so? It is in this report, Analysis of High Income Individuals'...