Results 2,521-2,540 of 27,016 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have to go in five minutes. Could I have five minutes now, if Deputy Conway-Walsh and the Chair do not mind?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I appreciate that. I want to ask about the banks and the ISIF money. There is €6 billion of the ISIF money in the banks. Is that right?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That contains the bank shares.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Can the witnesses remind me how much there was in banks before we started to sell off the shares in the banks that we had nationalised?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It was about €20 billion.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: As we sold off those shares did that money just go back to normal Government expenditure?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It came back to central funding. Are we getting dividends from our shares in the banks?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: What sort of money are we getting from AIB?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: A couple of hundred million, but it would have been more presumably.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Okay, €300 million. Perhaps Governments have made announcements on this or perhaps not, but is it projected that the other €6 billion in shares is going to be sold off?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Just so that I understand, is it the case that once it is all sold off, there will be no more dividends coming in? This money is being transferred over to a fund. Which fund is it? Is it the infrastructure fund or both?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes. Have we done a cost-benefit analysis on that? I am just curious. It is obviously Government policy but I wonder what the benefit is. Dividends are going to stop coming in. I am not tracking bank shares at the moment but the value of bank shares are going up because they are making super-profits.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: In the meantime, is it the case that before we sell off those shares, they are going to go into one of these new funds?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: For what it is worth, it seems to be folly for us to be selling the banks off and losing the dividends at a time when they are making us a lot of money. It would be a prudent investment to run the banks given all the surplus money we have.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: But it is one-off and that is it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Overall, I think the one lesson we have learned is that the banks never lose. Everything was thrown at them to bail them out. They never lose and they are back making profits again. Anyway, it is obviously a difference in policy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will ask the next question on Palestine very quickly because I have just two minutes. Do we have information on where companies are operating in the occupied territories? Do the witnesses have details that can be shared about investments we have in Israel full stop, not just companies that might be operating in the occupied territories but that are based in or operating in Israel? Some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Does the NTMA break it down into jurisdictions?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: A geographical analysis is available. Can I get that on the ISIF website?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Future Ireland Fund and Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund Bill 2023: Discussion (22 Nov 2023)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is great. This is the very last question I want to ask. If we are not meeting our climate targets, can the money being used to meet our targets – the money that can be spent - be used to buy carbon credits?