Results 3,961-3,980 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: It has been a busy day and, indeed, week and we will not detain the witnesses long. There are two proposals before the joint committee. There is a proposal for a Council regulation conferring specific tasks on the European Central Bank which is known as "the ECB proposal" and there is a proposed amendment to regulation 1093/2010 establishing European supervisory authority on banking. What...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: What is involved in the specific tasks of the ECB on prudential supervision of institutions?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does that mean the proposal for ECB supervision relates only to 100 to 120 major banks out of some 6,000 institutions in the eurozone?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Which Irish banks will be in the scheme?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Scrutiny of EU Legislative Proposals (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: I realise Mr. Carrigan is not a member of the European Council, but can he tell me what will change when this system is implemented? What will happen when a major bank gets into severe difficulties of the type which have wrecked our economy, the upshot of which has been to place the burden on the working class and taxpayers by way of massive austerity. Old debt has been replaced by new debt...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: I would like first to hear from Mr. Spring on that issue.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: I would ask that Mr. Spring and Dr. Somers re-examine this imaginatively with the board rather than within the parameters of the thinking in banking circles. They will be well aware that the domestic economy is in a dreadful situation, with mass unemployment etc. and the taking of money from people's pockets-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: -----leading to less money being spent in the shops and on services. A general write-down, not for chancers but for ordinary people who were the victims of the gouging and speculation that went on in the profiteering markets, is required. Mr. Spring, when Tánaiste, had no problem writing off a €1 billion or €2 billion for tax cheats, including criminals and gangsters yet...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: That was done in 1993.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: I put it to the public interest directors in their capacity as representatives of the ordinary citizens of the State suffering the disasters of austerity caused by the greed and profiteering of the banking and property scenes that, after four years on the board in the case of Mr. Spring and three in the case of Dr. Somers, no formal structures to make them accountable to taxpayers are in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Should there not be a formal structure for reporting at least to a Minister if not directly to the Dáil?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Is Mr. Spring still a director of Alder Capital limited?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Alder Capital is a currency speculator and has speculated heavily against the euro over a number of years, reportedly making massive profits as a result. Its co-founder Brian McCarthy boasted "we have capitalised on the weakness of the euro". Does Mr. Spring accept that there is a fundamental and fatal conflict of interest in representing the Irish people as a public interest director in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: With respect, I did not suggest Mr. Spring was on the trading floor manning the phones, but he is the chairman. According to the Credit Institutions (Stabilisation) Act 2010, the remit of the public interest directors is to address the serious and continuing disruption to the economy and the financial system and the continuing serious threat to the stability of certain credit institutions in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: The ordinary people Mr. Spring represents would see it very differently. I accept that within the banking club it might be fine. There are very incestuous relationships among all the top tiers of the financial and economic elites. The ordinary taxpayer-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Mr. Spring is chairman of a currency speculator. That is the reality. He is part of the system.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Let facts speak for themselves. From previous exchanges, we know what Mr. Spring earns annually from the public purse. Apart from his fees as a representative on the board of AIB, what other public funds does Dr. Somers receive annually?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: I put it to both public interest directors that given their public emoluments and being recipients of hundreds of thousands of euro a year, they are in difficulties in representing ordinary people. Mr. Spring also has a lucrative sideline in private companies, although I am not sure about Dr. Somers. How can they feel the pain of the people who are at the mercy of AIB in the context of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does Mr. Spring have a comment?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Role and Contribution of Public Interest Directors in Financial Institutions: Discussion (20 Dec 2012)

Joe Higgins: When the bank's chief executive was before the joint committee, it was set out that this year 34,000 mortgages are subject to forbearance, of which 66% are interest only. That is the huge suffering. Those people are in essence slaves to the banks. Have the public interest representatives considered or discussed with the board a different approach rather than to torture families and...