Results 4,321-4,340 of 36,054 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I thank the Chair. I welcome the Ministers. I am under pressure so I will start with a question. Yesterday, the Minister spoke about the scope for one-off measures. How will that be calculated in terms of the summer economic statement? Where is the scope for these measures? Will they take effect in 2023 or 2024 or, indeed, both? Will the Minister clarify the funding source for the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: It could go beyond that. Is that possible? Is that what is being said? It could eat into the general Government balance, potentially?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: The idea that some of these revenues may come from windfall taxes, though, has not been ruled out given these measures will be once-off in nature. Would it be fair enough to say that?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Turning to the long-term savings vehicle, the Minister outlined that he wanted to address the longer-term challenges the State will be facing arising from having an ageing population, demographics and health issues. The Minister has departed from this position. I understand he is now talking about two different funds. One would be a capital fund. The other would be what the Minister had...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: That is fine.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Yes, I got that.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: That is helpful. I am sorry for interrupting the Minister, but I have a few other questions. The problem for this committee is that we are reading about these proposals. I am not going to get into an argument, but we sometimes find out more information from reading The Irish Timesand the Irish Independent. Articles have been published today suggesting that this fund will have a minimum of...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Yes. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, IFAC, has made it clear that when we look at the allocations set out in the national development plan, we can see that two things have happened. We are spending less. Capital spending has been revised downwards, while inflation has increased. We are going in the wrong direction in capital spending. I know this is increasing nominally but we are not...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Summer Economic Statement 2023: Discussion (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Perfect.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. Cuirim fáilte roimh Colm Kincaid agus roimh an chuid eile den choiste. Tosóidh mé le cuid den mhéid a bhí le rá aige sa ráiteas a léigh sé amach. I want to deal with something Mr. Kincaid mentioned in his opening statement, namely, SEPA. We touched on it last week with other witnesses. Mr. Kincaid talked...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: If I were to pay a supplier today for a service it provides to me and the bill was €2,000, when would it receive payment to its account?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: The process would likely take a couple of days, would it not? The supplier will not get payment that day.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Yes. If I were in Finland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Spain, Greece, Portugal or others, the likelihood is the supplier will get payment in 15 seconds. Is that not the case?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: All European countries operate instant payments. Is that correct? Here it is only Barclays Bank that operates it and it is for corporate customers and users of prepaid cards from Prepaid Financial Services, PFS. In other countries the percentage of instant payments as a ratio of SEPA payments is as high as 100%, in the case of Slovenia. In Austria it is 64%, in Finland it is 63%, in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: This was brought in back in 2017 to make life easy. I have experience of having to pay suppliers from my involvement in a community group. In this day and age, we are having to take a screenshot to show we have made a payment and send the screenshot to the supplier via WhatsApp, all because the banks here do not operate instant payments. As I have said, what other banks have done in all...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I am not disputing that. However, we have also seen botched attempts by banks, which came together to try to do an instant payment app just between themselves. I am sure they spent a lot of money, although I am not sure what the total was. Why did they not just plug into SEPA instant payments, which are available across the European Union? Am I correct that Revolut offers instant payments?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I only raise this issue because Mr. Kincaid raised the issue of instant payments. There are rules relating to authorised push payment, APP fraud, instant payments and so on, but it is pointless for us because the volume of transactions is so low. The transactions are very much taking place in corporate areas. I turn to the Central Bank's advertisement campaign online. Was it last year...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: It was an online public awareness campaign entitled, "How can I protect myself from financial services scams?" How did the Central Bank promote that? What platforms did it promote that on?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: How much paid advertising did the organisation use?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Authorised Push Payment Fraud: Central Bank of Ireland (12 Jul 2023)

Pearse Doherty: As I said, I commend the Central Bank on the public awareness campaign. We will need a lot more of them as these frauds become more sophisticated and develop over time, as we know has been happening. However, there is a serious issue with paying them. These companies are having it both ways. They are getting paid by the authorities who are trying to protect people and they are benefiting...