Results 2,001-2,020 of 6,295 for speaker:Michael D'Arcy
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: You will always jib when the pressure is applied. That is the reality.
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: I will try to touch on the positivity with regard to the budget. There are some very good things in it. I agree with Senator Reilly that greenways are superb. I also agree with what he said about child care costs. I am glad that prescription charges are being reduced. I completely agree with the introduction of a sugar tax and the measures that are being taken in respect of cigarettes...
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: The Chair has to give me an opportunity to respond to people.
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: Senator Byrne spoke about education. Another really important part of the capital budget is the €53 million that is being provided for further education for the first time.It was zero last year, so that will be a huge benefit. There will also be more than 6,000 new apprenticeships. I will touch upon the VAT issue quickly because a number of people raised it. There was a choice to...
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: I do not want to go down the Donald Trump path of saying it is or it is not. This is the largest health budget ever. For people to say that it is not is dishonest. I have a real concern about housing and the local authorities. I think it was Senator O'Sullivan who referred to the local authorities. I was on a local authority in 2007. Every director of service who was there has since...
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: I want to touch upon the issues raised by every Senator if I can.
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: The Chairman is very kind. Senator Michelle Mulherin referred to the competing interests in public services. That is so; there is no two ways around it. The Brexit loan scheme for businesses is a really good measure. I had experience of it in the farming sector. A total of €1.8 billion was also collected in rates, so there are the sums of €3.4 billion plus €1.8...
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: The 1,200 people with disabilities-----
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: I know that. I know a good bit about the health sector and my point is that nothing happens unless people are prepared to give an inch. I can tell Senator Conway-Walsh that a choice was to be made in relation to the bed spaces. The Senator cited Dublin and price gouging. I will not pretend to be pleased with the prices of hotel rooms in Dublin. The Senator, however, is the very person to...
- Seanad: Budget 2018: Statements (10 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: Senator Victor Boyhan raised the issue of social and affordable housing. I believe that all of the conversation has been about social housing to the detriment of affordable housing. A good local authority affordable housing scheme has been on the books for years but it has not been used for years because the market has cancelled it out. The market has gobbled up the affordable housing...
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: I am pleased to be here to bring before the committee two draft Government orders giving force of law in Ireland to a new double taxation agreement with Kazakhstan and a new tax information exchange agreement with Macao. The double taxation agreement with Kazakhstan was signed by the ambassador of Ireland to the Russian Federation, Mr. Adrian McDaid, on 26 April 2017. The tax information...
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: Ireland is a developed country and a member of the OECD and has always used this model as a basis for negotiations, adapting it to cater for Ireland's interests. When the UN model convention was published in 1980, it sought to assist developing countries. Ireland already had a well-established policy and model tailored to best represent the country's interests, so there was no need to...
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: I do not know the answer to that, Deputy. I can only assume that Pakistan, Ethiopia and Zambia were potentially not as well developed as Kazakhstan. There is a tier of development and my assessment may not be 100% correct. I will try to get a more detailed note on why there was a tiered structure between the UN and OECD models for those three countries, and why we are only using the OECD...
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: The jurisdiction of Macao approached Ireland for an exchange of information. If a country comes to us and is prepared to establish an arrangement, it is our policy to put that arrangement in place. As the committee will have seen from the previous note, there are 25 countries with whom we have exchanges of taxation information in place. Macao will be the 26th such country. They came to...
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: It is a separate region, similar to Hong Kong.
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: As a larger country, the United Kingdom has much bigger separate industries that we may not have developed.
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: Yes. It might be aircraft or car construction, for example. The UK exports certain products that we do not, and has developed certain sectors that we have not developed at all.
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: That was with regard to a previous treaty that was signed in the 1960s and was thus now considered to be out of date.
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: We are not in negotiations with other EU countries. In terms of protocol, we are considering the three countries of South Africa, Ghana and Japan, and they have to be updated.
- Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Taxation Agreements: Motions (3 Oct 2017)
Michael D'Arcy: Yes.