Results 35,661-35,680 of 35,973 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: Please allow me to make a point. The wrong information may have been given to Senator Burke as a result of the Minister of State interpreting what he understood the Senator to have asked. The Senator asked on section 15 whether it dealt with a certain issue. If the section did not deal with the Cinderella rule——

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I have a couple of points and questions for the Minister and he may clarify my reading of this section. Will stop-over flights, which originate in another state and whose end destination is another state but which stop in Ireland to re-fuel, be subject to this tax? Could the Minister answer this briefly so I can lead on from it?

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I have a question on the two rates of €2 and €10 which are dealt with in subsection (2)(b) . I am thinking in particular of Donegal Airport and the flight from there to Glasgow. Subsection (2)(b) refers to: . . . the distance between the place of departure of the flight and the place where the flight ends, at the rate of— (i) €2 in the case of a flight from an airport to a...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: Will the Donegal to Dublin flight be €2?

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I thank the Minister of State for the clarification on the points I raised. There is a lack of public transport in the areas where smaller regional airports are located. There are no other options, so people use the small airports quite regularly. The Donegal to Dublin connection is in reality being subjected to a €4 levy, rather than a €2 levy. If a person leaves Dublin to go to...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: In his reply, the Minister of State spoke about the proposal to double the exemption. In reality this levy is not in place until the Bill is enacted. The Government is trying to force low and middle-income earners to pay more. These are people caught in a poverty trap. In my Second Stage speech, I outlined the difficulties that many within these brackets face, including increases in the...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I support this recommendation. The recommendation does not set out what relief should be imposed or if one should be imposed at all. It calls for the Commission on Taxation to produce a report within three months on the dental costs of families with children under 16. The report will come up with findings. The reality is that many families cannot afford this dental work. The longer it...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I have the letter I received from the Cathaoirleach with regard to recommendation No. 3 being out of order but I do not understand the reasons.

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I note the reasons given in the correspondence. It is important that this Bill contains a measure to rule out tax incentives for private hospitals and private nursing homes. We know the situation with regard to public hospitals. We heard the announcements in the 2009 service plan on the cuts that will be made which, including the other €400 million, will amount to approximately €1...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: Indeed, I am. Property-based tax breaks, especially tax breaks which facilitate the privatisation of our health care system, have made very little difference to the long-term performance of our economy. However, they have resulted in the State forgoing hundreds of millions of euro in revenue. A recent article published in The Sunday Business Post showed that a tax investor who puts...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: The recommendation simply requires that the Minister requests a study to be done within six months of the enactment of the Bill. If he is unwilling to give that commitment, I must press the recommendation on this important issue. Recommendation put.

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Committee and Remaining Stages (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I move recommendation No. 2: In page 12, line 40, to delete "€18,304" and substitute "€37,000". This recommendation aims to increase the number of people who are exempt from the 1% levy. The Government decision to take cash from households at a time when their spending power has been severely diminished is a regressive one. Sinn Féin proposes that the PAYE tax credit be increased by 5%...

Seanad: Finance (No. 2) Bill 2008 (Certified Money Bill): Second Stage (19 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: This Finance Bill represents depressing evidence of a Government continuing to sleep-walk through a crisis that is not just threatening the banking system or the construction sector but is also slowly bleeding dry the small businesses that employ most workers and which are the heart of the economy. Even worse is that the hundreds of thousands of working families whose efforts drove this...

Seanad: Social and Affordable Housing (11 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Bhain mé sult as an méid a bhí le rá aige ar an rún a d'ardaigh an Seanadóir Buttimer, mar cheist iontach gar do mo chroí féin í. Bíodh sin mar atá, tá ceist difriúl le plé agam os comhair an tSeanaid anocht, ceist faoi eastát tithíochta atá curtha ar fáil ag Clúid in Bundoran i gContae Dún na nGall. I wish to refer to the voluntary...

Seanad: Social and Affordable Housing (11 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I thank the Minister of State for his reply. I appreciate that he will raise the issue of the €320,000 with the Minister of State, Deputy Finneran, and inform him that a representative from Clúid addressed Bundoran Town Council earlier this summer and said the money was still available to be drawn down and that the Department was waiting on an application from the community. This matter...

Seanad: Recall of Irish Pork and Bacon Products: Statements (10 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: Cuirim fáilte roimh an tAire Stáit. As my party colleague, Deputy Ferris, stated in respect of the current crisis, the priority now must be to limit the extent of the damage done to the sector and to protect the many livelihoods and jobs that have been affected. I spent the past couple of hours in my office trying to deal with pig farmers from County Donegal whose animals could not be...

Seanad: Recall of Irish Pork and Bacon Products: Statements (10 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: The reason some Irish retailers continued to sell Irish pork products after the recall on Sunday is that the products were produced in other countries but labelled as Irish products. If we are to deal effectively with this crisis we need to deal with the issue of labelling of Irish meats so that consumers are not duped into thinking they are buying Irish pork when it is imported pork...

Seanad: Report of Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the EU: Statements (9 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: In the report, we acknowledge the role of the European Union in terms of peace——

Seanad: Report of Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the EU: Statements (9 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: I respect the Chair but I also respect the truth.

Seanad: Report of Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the EU: Statements (9 Dec 2008)

Pearse Doherty: The Minister should read the report.