Results 2,261-2,280 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: -----private housing. That was one of the factors that fed into the former Minister, Noel Dempsey's decision around 2004 to move from local authorities building social housing to providing money to local authorities to purchase houses in private housing estates. There were also social integration issues involved, which I always thought was a pretty good idea. The costs of council built...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The banking division in the Department of Finance discussed the proposal with the banks in which the State has an interest, which would be AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: They had the normal discussions they have; there is constant interchange between the banking section and the Department. I also discussed it with the Governor of the Central Bank, as I mentioned earlier, and I understand the Central Bank took some soundings on how the lender banks, the mortgage providers, would deal with this proposal in terms of the deposit and their willingness to include...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: We were not asking them to input into the policy underpinning the scheme. We were inquiring as to how mortgages operated in practice and how this could fit into their practice of lending as part of the deposit in accordance with the prudential requirements of the Central Bank. Again, the advice of the Central Bank to move the mortgage threshold from 80% down to 70% was to widen it. The...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The Deputy does not know that.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: He does not because a lot of that could be coming from parents.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: In my personal conversations with the Central Bank, 70% was not mentioned. The figure for the average mortgage was 78.7%. The argument was presented to me that it would incentivise unnecessary borrowing and that it was in the pruential interest to keep the level of mortgages, as a percentage, down.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: We have gone over all this ground already. I do not agree with the Deputy; he has a different point of view. It seems to me that he confuses €1,800 with €18,000 in his additional argument about the cost. He talked about astronomical sums of money. I disagree with him but he is entitled to his view.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: That is as I understand it.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The discussion has gone well beyond the Finance Bill. I have been asked to comment on areas on which I have no expertise. In talking about 10% or 12% I was referring to the equity piece. The traditional model for a small builder building 70 or 80 houses was bank finance for about 60% to two-thirds, with the rest provided by the builder from the profits from the previous 70 or 80 houses...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: They are different again. The NAMA people are being financed through NAMA. NAMA is putting up the finance for the builders within NAMA.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: That is a different piece again. The Government has provided funds for that to local authorities.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: Let us see.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: Every local authority has to prioritise. The Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government has not told me that local authorities have come back to him looking for additional funds to open sites. Money is available and it was put up on the basis of a first tranche of money.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: The extra money can be made available, but it has to respond to requirements. There is no point in putting up money that will not be used. The practicalities of this are not about drawing up reports, or having reviews or designs; it is about using the resources to build more houses and we have to concentrate on that.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: There is also the money to which the Deputy referred, which is available to local authorities to open up land that is inaccessible and in which no one builder will invest unless it is opened up. That is a public investment function, for which money is available. I forget whether it was €80 million or €100 million that was put up, but it was a first tranche. It can be...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: So far, the suggestions I have are in different categories and do not necessarily overlap. However, I have made a commitment to Deputy Michael McGrath that I will commission an independent impact assessment of the help-to-buy scheme with a view to examining the general impact under the headings he has suggested. That will be done in September 2017. On that basis he dropped his amendments...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: I will discuss that matter with him and we will have notes on this discussion. I will come back to the Deputy on Report Stage to see where we are at.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: Of course.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2016: Committee Stage (9 Nov 2016)

Michael Noonan: I have not given the Deputy a commitment because I do not know what she is requesting. She is talking about this committee, together with the budgetary committee, commissioning a piece of work. I do not see where I fit into it.