Results 181-200 of 2,511 for long speaker:Joan Burton

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: ...tax levels exist in different countries are very important because every country has different rules and there is no compatibility in those rules. However, in terms of the BEPS process, it is a long-range one, which I support. I have publicly and privately supported it. I am happy to say the Government of which I was a member eventually supported it. That made a lot of sense for...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: ...are receiving a disability allowance from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. There are ways and means to cross-check data. For instance, to receive a permanent or long-term payment such as domiciliary care allowance from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, whether for a child or an adult, there is a recognised medical evaluation procedure...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (9 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: ...valuable information for deals that are in the pipeline. I know that the Minster was annoyed that this issue was raised, but it has been a fundamental principle of Irish tax policy for a very long time that there be no such circle of people with access to prior information on the details of the budget. It is important, then, that this be examined. I come to second point. There was...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: ..., perhaps on the south side of Dublin. How can the couple in my example afford to buy a house, particularly if they are married and have children, or want to have children, or if they are in a long-term relationship? It is an existential question. It may also be the case for the Minister, but I am constantly involved in conversations with people who spend entire weekends looking at new...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: ...he would bring forward amendments on Committee Stage relating to the five-year capital gains tax exemptions for the IREFs. We have not heard an explanation of why that should be renewed. For how long will it be renewed? What is the context for its renewal? What kinds of investments are we talking about? I need to have some of that information. When the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, said...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: What is the objection? There is a long-standing practice whereby members of a committee ask for notes from which a Minister is visibly reading. There is no reason members should not be given a copy. That is a normal courtesy, if I may say so, which is extended by all Ministers.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: Trade unions have a model that involves long-term investment in, for example, properties that people can rent, but I am speaking about a different matter, namely, the evidence in respect of some REITs. I agree that 2,400 apartments or whatever the number may be is a small share of the property market.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (7 Nov 2017)

Joan Burton: ...contributions. Would the Minister include this in the template? Looking at how life patterns are changing, this facility might be particularly necessary for people who stay in education for a prolonged period of time, which is of course what we want them to do. Under a total contributions approach - which does of course have much in its favour - I believe that we have to include...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Cabinet Committee Meetings (25 Oct 2017)

Joan Burton: ...running past a year and a half. I am really concerned about the future of some schools. In respect of an enormous number of recently built and extremely fine schools in Dublin west, teachers in long-standing schools are being left in the freezing cold with the rain coming in and no insulation. The Taoiseach referenced this during various constituency functions we have both attended....

Finance Bill 2017: Second Stage (24 Oct 2017)

Joan Burton: ..., particularly for people on very low incomes, universal credit simply cannot be dealt with in a sufficiently timely way in order to prevent depriving people on very low incomes of stoppages in their payments for six weeks, eight weeks or even longer at a time. The UK Minister responsible for this has been doing it on a trial basis. The outcome of the trial has been extremely...

Financial Resolutions 2018 - Budget Statement 2018 (10 Oct 2017)

Joan Burton: ...there are such yawning gaps in our nation’s roads, railways and communications, not to mention the blatant failures to meet basic targets for climate change and renewable energy. Last week the NTMA was able to sell bonds at a negative interest rate for long periods. These low rates will not last forever and at some time in the future we will look back and wonder why we did not fix...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Overseas Visits (3 Oct 2017)

Joan Burton: ...of the dispute between Boeing and the Canadian firm, Bombardier, and the imminent threat it poses to thousands of jobs in the North? We have been talking about Brexit, on and off, over a very long period of time. All of us are concerned about the huge threat to jobs that it poses, particularly in the North. The imposition by the US of a 219% tariff on Bombardier in the context of its...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Diplomatic Representation (3 Oct 2017)

Joan Burton: ...a number of very poor countries in Africa where the focus is to try and assist people, particularly women and children, many of whom are in extreme poverty. We gave an undertaking as a country a long time ago to a 0.7% of GDP commitment for overseas development aid. In this plan to expand our footprint, has the Taoiseach made any specific proposals that we would reach that commitment? We...

Priority Questions: Cultural Property Inventory (27 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: ...is very well versed in W.B. Yeats's contribution to Ireland. The Minister wants to be so crude as to measure in money the value of W.B. Yeats to practically every man, woman and child in Ireland, along with other distinguished writers, but it is part of what we are as Irish people. The Minister has presided over the collection being scattered to the four winds with respect to our...

Ceisteanna - Questions: British-Irish Co-operation (27 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: ...we speak, Scotland and Wales have a voice in British constitutional and devolved government arrangements. Northern Ireland, which is likely to be the worst affected, has no voice at all. We get long lectures from Sinn Féin about its detailed positions.

Ceisteanna - Questions: Government Information Service (27 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: ...; I certainly admire it, given that it contains some of the best journalism in Ireland. It reported a potential €160,000 tender to find out the public's perception of the Government and to inform its work. This was a long story published last week. How is this not political research? How can asking about any government in any country at any time not be political research? I...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Communications (26 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: ...of India? I am conscious that India is a country of 1.3 billion people, the largest democracy in the world. Would the Taoiseach agree that we should expand our relationships there? Not long after his appointment, the Taoiseach spoke about a desire to grow the Irish diplomatic presence abroad. Currently we have an embassy in India as well as four honorary consulates. In countries...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Taoiseach's Meetings and Engagements (26 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: However, we are facing into a potentially very divisive referendum on the repeal of the eighth amendment, which I have supported for a long time, as has my party. We are owed a fairly detailed description of the discussion that took place between the Taoiseach and the church leaders.

Written Answers — Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht: Arts Funding (26 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: 231. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht if she will commit to the long-term goal of increasing arts funding to the European average of 0.6% of GDP; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40265/17]

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Ex-ante Scrutiny of Budget 2018: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Economic and Social Research Institute (13 Sep 2017)

Joan Burton: ...similar property to what they are paying rent on. As a collection of economists this is a conundrum that we have to try to solve. Would the witnesses agree that unless we can get this right, the long-term implications for the economy are that, in older age, those people are not going to have what their parents or grandparents had, which was an asset by the time they had paid off their...