Results 24,021-24,040 of 35,924 for speaker:Pearse Doherty
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Well, okay, if it's neither here nor there-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Okay, because the reason I'm asking ... saying it, is it's one of the eight points that you've raised as the mistakes. But I need to move on because of the time constraints. And now we'll go to Vol. 3, page 28, and this is in relation to property tax incentives, and in ... it'll come up on the screen, Vol. 3, page 28. What we see in this here, it's a review of the exemptions, and we have...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Okay. So, if you did nothing - and you claim to have abolished these property tax reliefs - if you did nothing, do you accept that these schemes would have gone anyway?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: I understand that. But I just want ... because you're making the point that one of your main four elements was that you abolished the tax reliefs but you're acknowledging that these were going to abolish themselves in July 2006.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: And do you accept that you extended these schemes from the end of July 2006 to end of December 2006? And I'll quote just from the Finance Bill 2006, list of items, it says: "Full relief will be allowed for qualifying expenditure up to end of December 2006, as compared with the end of July 2006 deadline that currently applies for several of these schemes." Do you-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: And do you accept that for these same schemes that were going to abolish themselves in July 2006, that you extended them to ... some of them to end July 2008 with additional conditions, if additional conditions were to be made?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: I'm not questioning your reason-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: I'm not questioning your reason. I'm asking you do you accept the fact that you allowed transitional arrangements of these schemes-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: -----which weren't in place up to the end of July? Okay, so I just wanted to clarify that.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: So that's one of the four main points that you believe the Government took to try and dampen the property price rise that was happening at the time. The second one was in relation to the 150% capital on investment products. Did you have any input or your Government have any input into the-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: So it was nothing with Government, bar you supporting it?
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Okay. So, that's the second key area that you identified. The third key area you identified was not spending or continuing to put a 1% of GNP into the National Pensions Reserve Fund. Given the fact that this was statutorily required under section 18 of the National Pensions Reserve Fund since the year 2000, how could this be a measure that would actually try and deflate the increase in...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: But, Mr. Cowen, this wasn't like ... this wasn't a measure. So, when property prices started to increase dramatically, this wasn't a sudden measure that you took to deal with-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Well, just-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Okay. Well, based on the four-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Based on the four points which you say you are being accused, your Government is being accused of doing nothing to deal with the risks, one we know is that the abolition of property tax reliefs were going to be abolished anyway in July 2006,-----
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: -----let me finish - and you extended them under transitional arrangements. The other one is that you did not spend the National Pensions Reserve Fund, which was the policy since 2000. The other one is that you did not reduce stamp duty, although you did reduce stamp duty for first-time buyers during that period.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: And the other one is that the regulator introduced something that your Government had no hand or part in, bar that you supported it. Can I ask you what did you personally do, as Minister for Finance, instead of, "We didn't do this", as in, "We didn't spend the national pension fund"? What did you personally do when you seen an explosion of credit in the financial markets and a massive...
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: Nobody asked you that question.
- Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (2 Jul 2015)
Pearse Doherty: I'm asking a direct question-----