Results 9,541-9,560 of 32,864 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: That is correct.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: If an economy grows, the balance sheet of a country changes as well, but as I have already said to the Senator, I believe there are other sources of funding that will be open to us to allow us increase capital investment, apart from the need to do anything with the AIB shares. More broadly, at a time when the State getting involved in the banking system caused such anger in our country and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: At the moment, we are able to borrow less than 1%.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not have the figure available to me on the average interest rate and our national debt, but I know that the figure is in excess of €200 billion. That figure is too high. The sale of AIB would offer the ability to gain back in total €12 billion, roughly based on current market valuation. That is a very significant change in our country's level of national debt.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is playing a role in supporting all types of companies throughout the country. As the Senator knows, one of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund's goals is to provide funding to our pillar banks, which, in turn, allows those banks to lend money at a lower rate than would otherwise be the case. It does all of that in any event. The most recent credit...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I think the Senator did.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Instead, we will provide support for the local infrastructure housing activation fund which will help co-fund infrastructure. That, in turn, will allow private developers or local authorities to build on that land. We will be involved where needed in making credit more affordable to companies and that is the role of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Okay.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: What the Senator has described there of the State playing a role in trying to ensure that credit is more readily available to facilitate the building of homes while our banking system-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, it is being done through the banks while they are trying to normalise themselves and sort out difficulties they have on which they are making progress. That is exactly what the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is trying to do. The fund provides credit lines to our pillar banks to allow them to lend for commercial activity. That is the kind of transaction that has occurred here with...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not have that information available for the Senator now.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: However, I will see if I can get it for the Senator.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: It would be very helpful - I understand this will happen soon - for us to come up with a more appropriate measurement for our national income that can strip out some of the big changes that can happen quarterly and yearly. The CSO is working on that and I believe it will offer such an assessment quite soon. Any call the CSO makes on that is up to it. The level of debt is broadly in line...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Senator took the words out of my mouth. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, as our national income grew and the level of debt remained the same, the percentage obviously dramatically improved. I would like us be able to do both. I would like our national income to begin to grow in a sustainable way and for us, by running budget surpluses over a reasonable period, to begin to steadily...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: No, the quickest to achieve this comes down to we do with our deficit. The factor that most quickly leads to debt accumulation is the running of large budget deficits year after year. We are not going in that direction and our objective for next year, as the committee knows, is to balance the books. In the years that follow we will run a moderate surplus, just as we have at other points in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I will address the points the Senator has put to me, starting with the matter of the CCCTB. We will engage constructively in any action from the European Commission on matters like this. We will not, however, agree to any proposal that might undermine our competitiveness as a country. We need to be very clear here about corporation tax. Many other countries have made choices around how...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: My expectation is that to maintain the demographic, capital and public pay commitments we currently have, expenditure for next year will increase by approximately €1.8 billion.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, but on the other hand this involves hiring more teachers, for example, or more special needs assistants, as we indicated yesterday.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: That is correct. It still involves hiring many more teachers, however, and many more people to work in our social services. I will outline what share of that figure is driven by the demographic opportunities the Senator refers to when we publish the summer economic statement and the follow-on expenditure papers.