Results 9,561-9,580 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: I am aware of the report but it only came out last week. The consequences of losing the UK's contribution to the EU budget will be handled by forthcoming processes from Michel Barnier. I have no comment to make on the report for now other than to acknowledge that the UK's exit will obviously pose big challenges for the European budget. This is one of the many matters that this and the...

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

Paschal Donohoe: We will do that, Chairman. I have just been informed that many of the figures I gave the committee earlier today come from either the Courts Service or the Central Bank. Even from my notes here, however, I can see that we have figures available for 2014, 2015 and 2016. We will provide the committee with anything that we have.

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: Yes, very much so. I will be working on this area with the Minister of State, Deputy Patrick O'Donovan. We have a number of legislative proposals before the Oireachtas that colleagues in these Houses have differing views on. I respect that. I would certainly welcome the opportunity to meet this committee again to see if we can chart a way forward on these proposals.

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

Paschal Donohoe: It is not so much that we have them with banks. We have a deferred tax mechanism that works for losses for commercial companies and organisations and it includes banks.

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

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, they are.

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 a time period apart from saying that deferred tax liabilities are there due to losses. They are no different from anything that we make available to another Irish company or organisation here.

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

Paschal Donohoe: That depends on how they perform across the coming years. If we were to change the status of those deferred losses then that, in turn, would affect the capital status of the banks thus causing an entirely different problem for the Government and the Irish economy.

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

Paschal Donohoe: I am satisfied that the matter is a priority. I also know that the high level of premia is a really big issue for people in terms of their day-to-day cost of living. Insurance is also a big challenge for companies, particularly small companies. The Chairman did not ask me to comment but I will not comment on what happened last Monday. Yesterday morning, the Cabinet agreed to begin...

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

Paschal Donohoe: I am absolutely looking at it. My Minister of State, Deputy Michael D'Arcy, also has a particular responsibility for the area. In terms of what we are doing about the matter, it is not a case that we will take an initiative in the future because we have already done so. The cost of insurance working group's report has made 71 recommendations that should be implemented by the end of 2018....

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

Paschal Donohoe: I view the decrease more than the beginning of the work that we need to carry out. We need to create an environment in which this kind of change occurs on a yearly basis.

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

Paschal Donohoe: I have been informed of no such breaches. I will meet the Governor of the Central Bank in the coming days and I will raise this matter with him.

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

Paschal Donohoe: I remember when the legislation came in that created the special managers the Chairman referred to. I know what the role is and how important it is. I am sure the Central Bank would take it very seriously if the legal requirements were not met. We are a few weeks in and I have not been informed of such a breach. If there is an issue in terms of this matter, I am happy to update the...

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

Paschal Donohoe: I am happy to have that. The Chairman will know the concerns we have about the Bill are genuine. It is not clear to us how this entity would be funded. It appears it would need to issue some form of bond to pay for the financial commitment. We do not understand how that would happen. Furthermore, we are not at all clear how such a unit would be kept off the balance sheet of the country....

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

Paschal Donohoe: The bank-related part is between one fifth and one quarter. The rest is the accumulated cost of running deficits. This is why, when Senator Horkan asked me about this point, I said the best way we can begin to get our debt soon is related to what we do in terms of our need to borrow every year. The level of debt in the economy is between €200 billion and €205 billion, which...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: Foreign Direct Investment (11 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I understand that Parliamentary Question number 32 of 29 June 2017, answered by my colleague, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, concerned the annual cost to the State of securing new jobs through foreign direct investment. Tax reliefs are generally available to all undertakings and not specifically targeted at FDI companies. Therefore it is not possible to separately identify...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: Tax Rebates (11 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I am informed by Revenue that the cost of the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) rebate for electric, electric hybrid and plug in hybrid cars in 2017 is estimated at €15 million for the year. There is no basis available to Revenue on which to forecast possible future growth, so assuming that there would be no change in registration numbers in each of the years 2018 to 2022 the estimated...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: Living City Initiative (11 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Living City Initiative was enacted in the Finance Act 2013 and commenced on 5th May 2015. The Initiative was extended beyond the original planned pilot cities of Limerick and Waterford, to include the cities of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Kilkenny. In line with my Department's commitment to evidence based policy-making, the inclusion of these additional four cities followed the completion of...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: Tax Code (11 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: In Budget 2016, the Minister for Finance committed to extending the bank levy (a form of stamp duty paid by financial institutions) until 2021, subject to a review of the calculation methodology. This took place during 2016, including a public consultation to ascertain the views of stakeholders. Following on from this, it was decided to retain the existing DIRT-based calculation methodology,...

Written Answers — Department of Finance: NAMA Property Sales (11 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Deputy will be aware that NAMA, through its continued engagement with the Department of Housing, Planning & Local Government, has played a very important role in facilitating, on a commercial basis, the supply of social housing from within its existing portfolio. To end-June 2017, NAMA had delivered 2,398 properties for social housing use to both local authorities and approved...