Results 3,681-3,700 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Leaders' Questions (2 May 2013)

Joe Higgins: Then stop the cuts.

Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2013: Second Stage (Resumed) (1 May 2013)

Joe Higgins: The Land and Conveyancing Law Reform Bill 2013 is a mean bit of proposed legislation to give back to the banks the terrifying power over homeowners who purchased prior to 1 December 2009 and who might have been in a position to benefit from the repeal of section 62(7) of the Registration of Title Act 1964 in that their homes could not be repossessed by virtue of this repeal. What is...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Official Engagements (30 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: The foundation that organises the World Economic Forum is funded by about 1,000 of the biggest multinational corporations, typically grossing more than $5 billion in turnover annually. The gathering in Davos that the Taoiseach attended is by invitation only, bringing together the world's biggest capitalists, quite an array of leading right-wing politicians, including the Taoiseach, and the...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Official Engagements (30 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: Without added horsemeat, one hopes.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Official Engagements (30 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: 8. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on his attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. [12517/13]

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Seanad Referendum (30 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: The Socialist Party was decades ahead of the parties in government in demanding the abolition of the Seanad. The Seanad is an elitist entity, some of the Members of which are voted in by university graduates. There is no vote in the Seanad for ordinary working people who did not have the opportunity to attend third level. Even some of those who have attended college, have been denied a...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Seanad Referendum (30 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: 2. To ask the Taoiseach if it is his policy to hold a referendum on the future of Seanad Éireann. [12515/13]

Order of Business (25 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: First, will the Tánaiste say definitively that the maternal life protection Bill will have passed all Stages by the summer recess?

Order of Business (25 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: It is quite in order on the Order of Business. Second, as the banks were announcing crippling increases in mortgage payments the Revenue Commissioners chairwoman, on the Tánaiste's behalf, was callously threatening to dip into the social welfare payments and wages of workers who object to his property tax, which is a tax too far. Will he amend the property tax to ensure that does not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: It is an income tax, because it is coming from workers' wages.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: That is semantics.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: On workers.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: We have heard a lot about the sustainability of the total national debt, which now stands at 120% of GDP. If memory serves me correctly, interest payments must be close to €9 billion per year. What is the council's comment on that situation? Is it sustainable and what do the markets think about it? What are the prospects for the debt, particularly interest rates, which are a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: Essentially, everything done is predicated on the dictatorship of the financial markets. There is a moral issue here - what is morally right and morally wrong.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: When a government makes a decision that private debt be foisted onto the shoulders of the working class, then we are in an entirely different situation and a crazed logic and morality, which is what is being implemented. Virtually every economist in town goes along with that and does not challenge it. I need to move forward quickly. I refer to the end of austerity and 2015-16. The...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: To come back to Dr. Donovan's caveats in regard to projections, etc., this country will leave the troika programme at the end of this year. It must do so because the troika above all and the whole political establishment of Europe needs it to leave for political reasons and to validate their austerity agenda and to say Ireland was the poster boy and it is leaving. Will Dr. Donovan look at...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: Dr. Donovan did not state as much but it seems that the estimates for growth come from a bunch of economists chancing their arm. On one set of assumptions, there may be growth etc. but this may not be the case if demand weakens across Europe etc. and there could be entirely different projections. What the hell are we talking about in terms of a firm perspective for the next three years, and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report 2013: Discussion with Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: No. Deputy Donnelly should be the next Opposition speaker. I will come in myself at some stage.

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: 17. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if she will provide figures for the number of persons who have had their unemployment assistance and unemployment benefit cut because her Department was not satisfied that sufficient effort was being made by the people concerned to find employment. [18968/13]

Written Answers — Department of Social Protection: National Internship Scheme Placements (24 Apr 2013)

Joe Higgins: 30. To ask the Minister for Social Protection following the Indecon Report into the JobsBridge scheme which revealed that 240 of the 7,300 companies surveyed admitted to availing of the scheme to displace paid jobs, the reason that only 12 companies have since been banned from participating in the scheme. [18969/13]