Results 4,121-4,140 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion with Civic Society Representatives and Focus Groups (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: Ms Callan knows the domestic economic is being eviscerated by the disastrous austerity policy and the bailout of European bankers, speculators and the like. Small enterprises and self-employed people, along with workers, are its foremost victims. It puzzles me why her organisation continually pushes a policy that will further eviscerate the domestic economy. In her submission, for example,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion with Civic Society Representatives and Focus Groups (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: No, that is it. Thank you, Chairman.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion with Civic Society Representatives and Focus Groups (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: My problem with the Irish Cancer Society's policy traditionally is that it always hits on price increases to try to overcome the damage done by nicotine addiction. Unfortunately, that increase hits the poorest people in society. As the submission states, smoking is the greatest contributor to health inequalities and accounts for up to half the difference in life expectancy between the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion with Civic Society Representatives and Focus Groups (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: I do not agree with the exercise we carry out every year, where tax increases on alcohol and tobacco in the budget are justified on the grounds of health. I have always opposed these tax increases, particularly on tobacco. The health issue is an excuse and hypocrisy by Governments. Health issues are serious but they should be dealt with in a different way, rather than by piling on taxes....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Minister is right. It was criminal lunacy but his Government continues the policy of bleeding the Irish people of their resources in order to honour that criminal arrangement. In light of how indefensible this is, that the Irish people are held to ransom to bail out the European financial system, how does he explain that his colleagues, particularly in German, have made such heavy...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Minister is right that the previous Government was criminally negligent and responsible for this situation. The three institutions of the troika, the European Central Bank, the European Union and the IMF, were equally complicit in putting a gun to the head of the disastrous previous Government. That means that it put a gun to the head of the Irish people. Why should we adopt a position...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Irish people are in a position to make a demand and let these institutions know what is acceptable. The Minister's Government, following on from the disastrous policies of the last Government, is bending the knee to these institutions at every point rather than standing up to them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Forthcoming ECOFIN Council: Discussion with Minister for Finance (8 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: We can see the National Treasury Management Agency's prediction for the debt to GDP figure to reach 117.5% this year and 120.3% next year. One projection I have seen for the interest payments on that debt next year will be €9 billion. How on earth can anybody describe that as sustainable? Of course, the interest payments can continue but that would be at the cost of impoverishing...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: Does the Taoiseach agree that when he reviews the progress made on the implementation of the programme for Government, he will have to acknowledge that, unfortunately, any job strategy he envisaged has been a spectacular failure? What is his view on the fact that there are 33,000 fewer jobs now than at the end of last year, some 87,000 have emigrated in the past 12 months, the highest figure...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: Austerity is failing the domestic economy.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Programme for Government (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: To ask the Taoiseach the steps he will take to review the progress of the implementation of the Programme for Government. [44570/12]

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: I hear the Ceann Comhairle.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: I will be brief.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: It is not and I will tell the Ceann Comhairle why.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: The Ceann Comhairle made the point about Cabinet confidentiality and sub-committees.

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: I accept that. However, the Taoiseach is responsible to the Dáil for the workings of the Cabinet sub-committees. Therefore, it is quite in order that he should report on the general-----

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: That is the point I am making. The Taoiseach has a responsibility to report to the Dáil on the role of the sub-committees. In this regard, it is legitimate to ask about general policy points that should be-----

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: I am asking about the role which the Cabinet sub-committee could play in regard to these crucial issues. Questions to the Taoiseach will become meaningless if all we can do is ask how many times the committee met and when he says five times we say it should have met six times. It makes a nonsense of it and it is similar with regard to other matters. Unless a general approach to the huge...

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: I put it to the Taoiseach that the proposals the banks are insisting on with regard to mortgage arrears are to the benefit of the banks at all times and not of the thousands of owner-occupiers who are in difficulty. The Taoiseach said during Leaders' Questions that he would extend the remit of the Cabinet sub-committee on mortgage arrears into a more general approach to the banking sector....

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed): Cabinet Committees (6 Nov 2012)

Joe Higgins: To ask the Taoiseach the number of Cabinet sub Committee meetings that he has attended recently. [43030/12]