Results 2,861-2,880 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: Is there an estimate for how much water tax will be taken and how much we, the taxpayers, will contribute?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: I heard the Taoiseach today and he repeated the same thing he had said many times over the past few months. We do not yet have the structure he proposes. When can the Minister tell us the structure and the amount he expects to be brought in next year by Irish Water? How much will the taxpayer pay above that, as we always have done, to provide water?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: Will we know before 23 May?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: I have one last question. I heard the Minister reply to one of the earlier questions about tax breaks that brought a wall of money into the country. I presume he was referring to property and real estate investment trusts. What is the logic of facilitating a new wave of speculation by the same type of vulture that caused the disaster for which people have been paying so dearly over the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: The European semester, which was alluded to approvingly by the Minister, is supposedly about improving economic governance and so on. From my perspective, it is simply about subjecting the Irish economy and the Irish people's economic situation to the surveillance and policing of the overlords in the European Union - the troika - to make sure they continue to wear the yoke of austerity that...

Commission of Investigation (Certain Matters relative to An Garda Síochána and other persons) Order 2014: Motion (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: While the issue of the secret taping of conversations in Garda stations is extremely serious and needs a thorough investigation, one can only be wholly cynical about how the Government rushed to set up this particular commission of inquiry. It is quite clear that it was, and is, a means of avoiding immediate explanations by the Taoiseach and the rest of the Government of what pressure was...

Order of Business (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: We have appalling suffering and stress on a daily basis as families face homelessness through rent increases, rent supplement not keeping up, etc. Is it not incredible? The Library and Research Service tells us that in the 1970s we were building between 6,000 and 8,000 social houses per year.

Order of Business (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: The Government is building several hundred now as against the 90,000 plus in need of homes.

Order of Business (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: Will the housing (miscellaneous provisions) Bill make provision for an emergency response to this awful situation?

Order of Business (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: Does the Taoiseach realise how bad the situation is?

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Climate Change Policy (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: The most recent report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change has intensified the debate on climate change around the world. Would the Taoiseach agree that in Ireland that debate is intensifying now because it is becoming clear that it is not just the poorest of the poor in far away places who have suffered disproportionately from climate change and weather-related events? In many...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Climate Change Policy (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: 4. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the times the Cabinet committee on climate change and the green economy met in the past year. [7498/14]

Written Answers — Department of Environment, Community and Local Government: Dublin Docklands Development Authority (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: 412. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will instruct the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to resolve financial issues with a construction company (details supplied) in order that a small subcontractor who is owed €650,000 wiil be paid. [17587/14]

Written Answers — Department of Justice and Equality: Ministerial Correspondence (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: 479. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if he has received a request to meet a person (details supplied); and if he is willing to meet them to discuss the serious matters that they have raised. [17568/14]

Written Answers — Department of Health: Hospital Services (15 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: 601. To ask the Minister for Health if he will appoint a person (details supplied) from the Health Service Executive to discuss a matter with a person in County Wexford who suffers from an aggressive from of motor neuron disease and is in need of invasive ventilation. [17617/14]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: (Resumed) Bank of Ireland (10 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: Some €1.9 billion.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: (Resumed) Bank of Ireland (10 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: In justifying the very hard line Bank of Ireland is taking with home owners who are in mortgage distress and in defending his own exorbitant annual income, Mr. Boucher keeps referring to the shareholders of the bank as justification for everything. As a major bank, does he feel it has any responsibility to Irish society more generally in respect of what Bank of Ireland and the other banks...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: (Resumed) Bank of Ireland (10 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: The problem is that the unsustainable level of mortgage repayments means that far more money is going to the banks than should be going to them, money which would otherwise be going into services, employment creation, shops and so forth on a local basis. In fact, it is quite damaging to the economy. The 4.5 million taxpayers would be quite interested in having a global solution to this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: (Resumed) Bank of Ireland (10 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: Unfortunately, the €6 billion goes straight into redeeming banker and bondholder debt in the European financial markets, for which the Irish people have no responsibility whatsoever. However, that is a more general question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Mortgage Arrears Resolution Process: (Resumed) Bank of Ireland (10 Apr 2014)

Joe Higgins: In conclusion, could Mr. Boucher put a value on the total amount of negative equity in the bank's owner-occupied mortgage book? Lastly, I have a question which I put to the representatives of all the banks. Does Mr. Boucher not see the common sense that ordinary people see, that rather than putting tens of thousands of people through the torture and distress there should be a global...