Results 181-200 of 34,444 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: In short, I understand where the Deputy is coming from. To provide background to it, under Irish VAT legislation professional medical care services supplied by recognised medical professionals who are registered on a statutory basis in the State are exempt from VAT. Regulations made some time ago, on 2 July 2018, under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 designate counsellors...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: The VAT rating of goods and services is subject to the requirements of the EU VAT directive with which our law must comply. The service of hiring bicycles, including e-bikes, is included in Annex III and Ireland applies a reduced rate, currently 13.5%, to the supply of hiring bicycles, including e-bikes for a short period of time, no more than five weeks. Hire for longer periods is subject...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: At this stage, everybody on the committee is aware of how the VAT code operates, so I will not go through all of that. I understand that within the craft sector a wide variety of VAT rates apply. For that reason, we are not clear that VAT would be an effective tool in supporting the sector. My contention to the Deputy would be that it would be through that the local enterprise offices, and...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: It is a sector which is doing well but could do even better.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: No. What we will do in advance of the next budget is that we will have a look at this in the TSG process and look at the business supports that are there. I am reminded of our recent visit I had the National College of Art and Design. I saw the great work that is going on there and the young graduates who are coming out who want to stay in the sector and want to do so in Ireland. It is a...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: Matters pertaining to the preservation of the Irish language from a policy point of view are the responsibility of my colleague, the Minister of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Dara Calleary. One of the primary roles of his Department is to support the Irish language and to strengthen its use as the principal community language of the Gaeltacht. That Department...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: There are two different issues covered in these three amendments, namely, the bank levy and the corporation tax loss relief for banks. I will, therefore, address them individually, starting with amendments Nos. 74 and 75 on the bank levy. As I announced in the budget, the revised form of the bank levy that was originally announced as part of budget 2024 was extended by one year in...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not have the information. If the Deputy bears with me for one moment, I will get it for him. In regard to Bank of Ireland, it is estimated that the utilisation period will be the end of 2028. With regard to PTSB, it is estimated that it would be a further 12 years. I will come back to the Deputy with regard to Allied Irish Banks later on. I have a query in relation to something...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: Ultimately, my view is the best way we have of making progress on that is through competition within the sector. It is why the decision in relation to the future of PTSB is so important. It is why we are trying to encourage and support more competition in the mortgage sector. That is the way we will do it. Neither the Central Bank nor the Government has the ability to intervene in the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: We are in a country that two banks have left, with all of the consequences that means for the people who work in them, for the taxes we collect and for the lending we need to build more homes and support SMEs. Two banks left this country, including Ulster Bank, which was present here for decades. We get to a point where I understand the arguments the Deputy is making-----

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: I have a similarly dismal view of the Deputy's arguments. I find them similarly unconvincing. As regards the idea he continually peddles, which does not wash with people, that in some way I am protecting or standing over a guarded elite, he has been making that claim against me for long enough. It still does not wash. What I am trying to do is make a set of decisions that, in the round,...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: No, sorry, I am coming back in on that.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: I wish to inform the committee that I may need to bring forward consequential amendments to one or more of three sections of this Bill. They being sections 50, 82 and 83. Section 50 provides for the extension and amendment of the farm restructuring CGT relief. Section 82 provides for the extension of the young trained farmer stamp duty relief. Section 83 provides for the extension and...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: The primary policy rationale for business relief is to encourage enterprise, support the intergenerational transfer of family businesses and prevent the sale or break-up of businesses in order to pay a capital acquisitions tax liability. Under existing rules, an asset is excluded from the relief if it was not used for the purposes of the business for at least two years prior to the date of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: I cannot give an accurate cost on that.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: If I look at the costs as they have gone up, and they have indeed gone up in recent years, I expect that what we are seeing here is money that is being released that I then hope is being used in such a way for further investment within a business or within an economy by those who are benefiting from this.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: No, the costs have gone up but-----

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: I said the costs have gone up.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: That is the phrase I just used. I am acknowledging they have gone up but it has not been raised with me in a way that indicates that there is anything inappropriate behind that. It is a feature, I imagine, of an economy that is growing and businesses within that who are benefiting from that. While I know the cost has gone up, I have not been informed that it is for any reason that should...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2025: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2025)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not have the information available regarding where it could land this year but when that information becomes available I will be happy to share it with the committee.