Results 2,101-2,120 of 7,648 for speaker:Rónán Mullen

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: Writing in The Irish Timestoday about the Canada-Europe trade agreement, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, Senator McDowell is rightly critical of what he regards as the cavalier approach of the Government to Oireachtas scrutiny. As we know, CETA would involve giving foreign corporations the power to sue sovereign states outside our legal system through the investor court...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: Will the Leader take a point?

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: I thank her for her comprehensive answer. I want to make it clear I am not having a go at her. I do not wish to do that. She is constrained, as the Leader of the Seanad always is, by the logic of power around here. I also support that legislation. I am talking about the Government, rather than the Leader. She has to do what she has to do. I do not care if everybody at the leaders'...

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: When will the legislation commence?

Seanad: An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: When will it commence when enacted?

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: I move recommendation No. 3: In page 10, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following:“5.Within six months of the enactment of this Act, the Minister shall lay before both Houses of the Oireachtas a report on the operation of section 195 of the Principal Act, which shall include an analysis of the amount of revenue foregone as a result of the authorisation of exemptions under...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: The proposed recommendation No. 3 relates to the recommendation I sought to introduce on Committee Stage and is similar to recommendation No. 2, which has been ruled out of order. I note your ruling, a Chathaoirligh, and the explanation which I received from you on the grounds that it could involve a charge upon the people or upon the Revenue, as per Standing Order 41. I note that you stated...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: More honoured in the breach.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: I thank the Minister of State for his extensive response. He covered a lot of ground at great speed. It did him no harm. I will certainly read up and reflect on everything he has said. I am very grateful to him for establishing the number of taxpayers with incomes in excess of €100,000 who availed of this exemption and for providing that figure of €1.7 million, which is a...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Report and Final Stages (16 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: It is at least €1.7 million because the figure does not include those who may be on very significant salaries just under €100,000 who are availing of this tax exemption and who may be public officeholders and so on. I ask the Minister of State and the Government to look at this issue. There is currently a significant drain on the public purse, to say the very least. People...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: If I may address this point, I had arranged with the Cathaoirleach that I would do so. There is an error in the ruling. This is an issue the Minister of State may also very well be interested in. The purpose of the amendment is to address an abuse, as I see it, in the current availing of the artists' tax exemption. The effect of my recommendation, of course, because it is not an amendment...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: Here is the point. This was a provision of the tax code designed to prevent artists from starving in the garret. The reason I believe this is wrongly decided is that Standing Order 41, under which the recommendation has been ruled out of order, states: "An amendment to a Bill, which could have the effect of imposing or increasing a charge upon the people or upon the revenue, may not be...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: Here is the point. What it states is "which could have the effect of imposing or increasing a charge upon the people". It does not state imposing or increasing a charge upon people and it does not state imposing or increasing a charge upon any person.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: That is not the point. The issue is not what the recommendation is about. The issue is whether this is a recommendation that can be properly excluded under the terms of the Standing Order 41. If the Leas-Chathaoirleach bears with me, I will explain. A charge "upon the revenue" clearly means a lessening of revenue coming in. This recommendation of mine does not propose a tax break.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: Please, Leas-Chathaoirleach, if you do not mind bearing with me. A charge upon the people means a public expense. An increase of a charge upon the people means an increase in that public expense. The narrowing of an exemption under the tax code is not the imposition or the increase of a public expense. It is not a charge upon the people.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: I am happy to go with that but I will say in conclusion-----

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: We are dealing with a situation here where there are already considerable restrictions on what the Seanad may do on money Bills and that is understandable because we are not as directly elected as the Dáil. In this context it surely means within this limitation we should, therefore, otherwise have the broadest latitude. Where there is an ambiguity in the meaning of the Standing Order,...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach. I do realise he has to do what he has to do within the limitations imposed by the fact the Cathaoirleach wrote me the letter, as it were. I thank Senator Higgins for her intervention on this point. In general terms, we are already very constrained in that we are only allowed to propose recommendations.

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: The section should not pass in my view without a recommendation of this type being included. As Senators will be aware, the so-called artists' tax exemption was originally introduced by Charles Haughey, the former Taoiseach, when he was Minister for Finance in 1969. When he spoke later in his life, in an interview in 2003, he spoke about the thinking behind this exemption. He said it was...

Seanad: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (11 Dec 2020)

Rónán Mullen: I promise-----