Results 1,261-1,280 of 4,414 for speaker:Sean Barrett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of Financial Sector: Discussion with Ulster Bank (4 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I ask Mr. Brown to outline the details of how the target of 3,784 customers was attained and exceeded. The numbers would help the committee in its subsequent deliberations. Regarding the rent receivers, we have concerns that the resident has not defaulted - it may be the principal private residence. The landlord has defaulted, but in some cases the receivers are seeking vacant possession,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of Financial Sector: Discussion with Permanent TSB (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome our visitors. Mr. Masding said at the beginning that a buy-to-let property is not someone's private residence. I think he meant that it is not the landlord's residence but it is the tenant's principal private residence. Is that taken into account when dealing with buy-to-let properties? Does the bank extend the protection of the Family Home Protection Act to the tenant who has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of Financial Sector: Discussion with Permanent TSB (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: There is some €4 billion of taxpayers' money-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of Financial Sector: Discussion with Permanent TSB (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: Did the Minister not pay €1.3 billion?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of Financial Sector: Discussion with Permanent TSB (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: We are losing €900 million a year on this investment according to page 2 of the initial presentation. The operating loss for the first half of 2013 is €449 million and for the first half of 2012 is €457 million. That amounts to €906 million so we are losing the best part of €1 billion a year on the €4 billion we put in. I do not know whether the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2013: Discussion with OECD (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome Mr. Bertók. I hope everybody is having a good time in the château. I have happy memories of that. Lobbying is a symptom of a deeper illness in public policy and we should dig down into the symptoms. Typically, I suppose these are merely the guys who get caught. We have a culture of regulatory capture, rent seeking, insider or outsider model of government and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2013: Discussion with OECD (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: In summary, how do we achieve more openness and transparency and how do we strengthen Parliament against bureaucrats and the Executive? It seems that the power has devolved to the bureaucrats and the Executive and they use it to spend more money than a country can afford. Most OECD countries, not only this one, have dramatically increased their debt-to-GDP ratio. Can stricter control of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Regulation of Lobbying Bill 2013: Discussion with OECD (5 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I thank Mr. Bertók so much. I wish the projects well and I hope we meet again, perhaps not electronically. Should there be compulsory regulatory impact analysis in order that the Minister will publish what lobbyists on both sides stated but then the expert view of the consequence for a macroeconomy if the Government goes ahead with this proposal or Bill?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: Does the Vice Chairman have a time in mind?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I will live within the time budgeted. I welcome the witnesses and thought I was back in Kenmare - I note its winning of the Tidy Towns competition yesterday - when I saw Mr. Fergal O'Brien present. I also thank the witnesses for their submissions. I have concerns about the research and development tax credit and raised it with the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, when he was in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: Will they be able to reform banks? I do not know where this economy will go with the present set of bankers, who seem to be largely the same ones who crashed the banks anyway. I am amazed that the rest of the private sector has let them off the hook.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: We have a Bill to separate zombie banking and utility banking, but the private sector can help. Banks became property-based; do they even know any more what they should not be doing?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: They took a ten-year holiday to play golf with builders and solicitors. We cannot operate without a banking system and I would say that, substantially, we do not have one now. We will do our bit but it really is up to these guys and the accountants to insist.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: The witnesses mentioned health insurance. The Milliman report shows that treatments that would take 3.6 days or 3.7 days anywhere else take 11.5 days here. We mentioned that to the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, and I think he asked Pat McLoughlin to look at it. It would be helpful if the business community were to state that it is a complete waste of money to keep people in hospital...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I thank the Vice Chairman and welcome the visitors. I would be extremely cautious about suggesting tax reliefs. I believe that is what Deputy Sean Fleming was saying earlier. The tax reliefs are partly why the country went on the rocks. A much better solution is to have a single low rate of tax across the board, with no deductions or allowances and fewer tax lawyers and accountants. If...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: What State agency does CCAB-I have in mind?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: The IAASA said nothing on the issues the chairman raised. Does anybody recall IAASA saying the accountants were good, bad or indifferent in these banks? It is a virtually invisible body, is it not?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (11 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: We turn the tax breaks on and turn them off again. We have had to reduce the number of civil servants and before that the Wright report pointed out that 7% of the staff in the Department of Finance had qualifications in economics. We cannot rely on it to switch things off. As we are not that subtle in the implementation of Keynesian economics, we have 80,000 empty houses throughout the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I welcome our guests. I particularly welcome former Senator Kathleen O'Meara to one of her old haunts.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Overview of 2014 Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (12 Sep 2013)

Sean Barrett: I share Deputy Ó Ríordáin's concern. When I last looked at the numbers, I discovered that the horses and dogs subsidy costs approximately 20 times as much as the Seanad. As for tobacco, Senator Crown has made a proposal for a tobacco-free society, which I support. Moreover, I believe that as Minister, Deputy Micheál Martin did a lot as well. I am unsure whether tax was...