Results 23,321-23,340 of 32,864 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The forecasting model used by my Department is as accurate as such models can be. If we have learned anything in regard to predictive models within the economy, it is that open economies are sophisticated, change quickly and have many moving parts. When discussing growth forecasts, I use approximate figures that are liable to change or are inside a certain range. Whether it be my own...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The work-out of issues relating to AIB, the sale of its shares the week before last and other measures I have recently taken indicate what a landmark moment the sale of the shares was in terms of the State trying to get money back for its support of the banking system in the past. On the financial services committee report and its suggestions on non-performing loans, it is offering four...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: It will take a significant period. For the foreseeable future, the framework within which these matters will be dealt is the Irish law constructs I have outlined. The existing policy will be used to resolve these types of matters. There is plenty of debate and negotiation ahead in regard to these European issues. That said, we will engage constructively in that process. The development...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Discussions and negotiations on these rules or other matters are constantly under way. On capital expenditure, the one area of caution we need to be aware of is that as money becomes available to our economy, we need to make sure that we release it back into our economy in a way that is genuinely sustainable for everybody. I will give the Senator an example of what I mean by that before we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The fiscal rules make sure that if we borrow money, we are capable of repaying it and that it will not have any other adverse effects on our economy. Fiscal rules or not, that is what I will want to do anyway. To emphasise the point, I am saying that I also want to look at how we can deliver new forms of capital investment. All of this comes with a caveat in terms of the direction we are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: We will double it over a seven year period. By 2021, with no further change, we will be investing €7.3 billion in capital investment in our country. The highest point we ever got to was €9 billion and look what happened after that. We need to be very careful about making money available in a way that delivers the investment the Senator is talking about. I make that point...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I am sorry. I understand the reason the Senator is asking the question. When I said "consumer", I meant the person who would purchase the good before they would normally sell it on again. A better word to use might have been "intermediary", for example, a retailer, a wholesaler or somebody who is selling a good or a service.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I will come back to the Senator on that point because this is something one country wants to trial. We believe the current way in which we operate our VAT system works. We believe it is a very sensible safeguard against fraud and that it is well implemented. However, our colleagues, particularly in the Czech Republic, may well have a different way of collecting VAT from us, and this change...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The point of difference in all of this is probably the way the system operates in the Czech Republic. They were eager to see if there was a new way of collecting VAT versus what they are currently doing. We believe our system is working well. This was a change they were looking to trial in their country.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: No. I do not plan to raise that because the fiscal rules indicate clearly that we need to use the sale of that asset to reduce our debt. That is due to the way the credit worthiness of our country is calculated. It does not differentiate between a share in a bank and our balance sheet and funding the Government may hold. The European bodies that calculate the credit worthiness of a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: That is correct.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: There are other sources of funding open to us that will allow us to do it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: That is correct.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: If an economy grows, the balance sheet of a country changes as well, but as I have already said to the Senator, I believe there are other sources of funding that will be open to us to allow us increase capital investment, apart from the need to do anything with the AIB shares. More broadly, at a time when the State getting involved in the banking system caused such anger in our country and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: At the moment, we are able to borrow less than 1%.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I do not have the figure available to me on the average interest rate and our national debt, but I know that the figure is in excess of €200 billion. That figure is too high. The sale of AIB would offer the ability to gain back in total €12 billion, roughly based on current market valuation. That is a very significant change in our country's level of national debt.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund is playing a role in supporting all types of companies throughout the country. As the Senator knows, one of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund's goals is to provide funding to our pillar banks, which, in turn, allows those banks to lend money at a lower rate than would otherwise be the case. It does all of that in any event. The most recent credit...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: ECOFIN Meeting: Minister for Finance (6 Jul 2017)

Paschal Donohoe: I think the Senator did.