Results 2,641-2,660 of 13,375 for speaker:Pat Rabbitte

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: In order to do that, we have to get the economy back into balance.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: That is the first challenge and that is what we are working on. There is no comparison between giving away the proceeds of the National Pensions Reserve Fund and levying 0.6% on pension funds as a contribution to the jobs initiative introduced by the Minister for Finance in the summer of 2011.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: That initiative has produced results in the tourism and hospitality sector and elsewhere and it must be remembered that the same pension funds had been the recipient of enormously generous tax reliefs. There is simply no comparison. We are trying to do exactly what the Deputy claims to aspire to, which is to look after the interests of the average citizen of this country-----

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: I do not see how Deputy McGrath thinks he can leave politics out of it.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: The reason we have the unfinished estates is because of the chronic mismanagement that went on under the Fianna Fáil-led Government.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: That is the reason-----

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: That is the reason we have the legacy of unfinished estates.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: It is difficult to listen to Deputy McGrath bleeding for the citizens when his Government authored the property tax-----

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: -----and made it a condition that must now be implemented to comply with troika funding. It was a Fianna Fáil proposition. The party was in favour of property tax then and now because it is in the middle of a by-election it pretends to be opposed to it.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: The report from which Deputy McGrath quoted is out of date. It was completed last summer-----

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: -----and the situation worked out since between the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and local authorities focused on estates one-by-one on the basis of certain criteria, for example, the installation and commissioning of public lighting, provision of potable water supply, provision of wastewater collection, treatment and disposal systems, access roads to at least...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: They have gone through the criteria and decided that 421 developments do not comply with the standards.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: The 421 developments in question will be exempt but, otherwise, the local property tax, which Fianna Fáil introduced, will be implemented-----

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: -----because it is a requirement of the funding arrangement with the troika.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: Sinn Féin is clearly disappointed that progress has been made on unfinished estates but that is the case.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: When the local household charge was introduced it was a holding arrangement and was announced as such at the time and a broad-brush approach was taken to the exclusion of unfinished estates. Since then, based on the criteria to which I have referred, and in arrangement with local authorities, the estates have been addressed one-by-one. I am sorry Sinn Féin is disappointed that the...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: I hope Deputy McDonald will also welcome the exclusion of estates built by developers who used pyrite and who built homes that resulted in extraordinary hardship and misery for householders. In terms of criteria that warrant exemption, they have been gone through with a fine-tooth comb and I regard what the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government has now published as fair.

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: The purpose of the tax-----

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: -----is to broaden the tax base and to bring property taxation in this country partially into line with the experience across Europe. We are virtually the only country in the OECD that does not have a property tax. What Deputy McDonald is concealing is her complete opposition to the property tax, which is remarkable given that up the road there is a property tax in Newry three times as...

Leaders' Questions (21 Mar 2013)

Pat Rabbitte: This kind of partitionist mentality on behalf of Sinn Féin is difficult to understand. How is it that it is alright in one part of the island but not alright in another part of the island? The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government consulted carefully with every local authority, told them the purpose of what it was engaged in and asked them to assess the estates...