Results 4,361-4,380 of 35,563 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I understand the recommendations around annual contributions and age limits. Reading recommendation 8.5, which is about the standard fund threshold, it discusses benchmarking and uses the word "appropriate". That is vague. What is an appropriate retirement pension? It does not suggest it is appropriate now or you could read it as it needs to be increased. Therefore, the regressive...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Report of the Commission on Taxation and Welfare: Discussion (Resumed) (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: How do you wean people off the help-to-buy? The commission recommended that it come to an end in 2022. It was supposed to have been ended many times and if this Government is re-elected I am sure it will be continued again. The problem is the market expects it, so it is factored into prices and so on. When you do something like this it distorts the market but when you turn the tap off,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I thank Mr. Barnes for his presentation. The information we get from the council and its submissions are always helpful. I see the council is calling for legislative reform. I ask this just out of curiosity, but is the council overstepping its mandate as laid down in law by calling for changes to legislation in relation to what the Parliament is doing? There are very clear...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I do not want to pick a battle on this issue but I want to make the point that in his opening statement Mr. Barnes said this should be reinforced by enshrining the national spending rule, which is a rule of the Government and not a national spending rule. It has no basis in legislation. It is a benchmark the Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil Government uses, which it has ignored on two out of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: With regard to risks and concerns about the future, and pensions is a good example, I would not expect anything less of the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council than to produce the type of papers it has produced. They are very helpful for the debate. I make this point because it is a specific call for national legislation that is outside the EU fiscal rules and would create a further bind. We...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Obviously it makes sense to try to keep debt at a low level or a reasonable level. As Mr. Barnes mentioned, it is written into the treaties so we are stuck with it and have to figure a way around it. The real question is how to get to 60%. Again, it seems that politics was the dominant factor. Germany produced a paper that suggested a 0.5% adjustment to GDP. This is what ended up...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Germany was arguing for a 1% adjustment for highly indebted countries. This does not appear in this version of the fiscal rules. It would have included those countries I have named. What the rule will specify is a 0.5% of GDP adjustment. Is this not also pro-cyclical?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I agree with Mr. Barnes because if we are running deficits, and our debt is more than 200% of GDP, then there is a major risk but the problem with rules is that if rules are set down in law and they are not able to take into account, that is a consideration. There is a bit of movement this year in terms of the four-year adjustment, and up to seven years and so on, but the rule is still there...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: It does not work.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Examination of EU Fiscal Rules (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: There is no doubt that there has been an improvement in many of the issues we argued in the referendum, structural balance, the hard rules, and the 120 have all been proven correct over time. The suspension of the rules at a time of vulnerability shows that these hard and fast rules should not be in domestic law, in my view. We are getting to a better position but there is still some...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I thank the witnesses for appearing before the committee. Regarding the Zalewski judgement, are there any findings by the office of the FSPO that could be now unstable as a result or could be could be questioned as a result of the judgment which required oral hearings to be held in public and the administration of votes and so on? Is there any concern about some of the decisions that have...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: The delegates say head 5 clarifies the roles of the FSPO and credit reviewer. Could they outline to the committee the process that applies when a decision taken by the FSPO contradicts a decision of the credit reviewer? At the minute, there is a twin-track approach whereby an appeal can be made to both parties.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: At the minute, is it not the case that there is an overlap?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Has there never been an overlap?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: So this is only clarifying something that has never been an issue but that requires clarification anyway.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: I thank Ms McGovern for that. Head 7 concerns where the FSPO can accept a complaint against a financial services provider or pension provider that has initiated legal proceedings regarding a matter. It is allowed to accept a complaint where it believes the legal proceedings are being initiated to frustrate the making of the complaint. Could the delegates clarify how the process has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: Head 8 is at the core of the Zalewski judgment in relation to oral hearings and the requirement for quasi-judicial bodies to have hearings in public. We are not going that far, basically stating there is an option to have the hearings in public. I presume that will satisfy the delegates. The Attorney General is obviously satisfied more than the delegates or me regarding the judgment. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: It is a very broad head. It deals with three issues: consultation with the parties, the nature of the circumstances and whether the complaint is in the interest of justice. It probably does not give clarity to either side.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (Amendment) Bill 2023: Discussion (10 May 2023)

Pearse Doherty: That is fair enough. Subsection (4) makes it clear that the oral hearings will be heard in private in the main, or conducted otherwise than in public, bar in the circumstances set out in subsection (4a), which includes the three criteria. The legislation makes it clear that, in the main, unless there are exceptions related to the nature of the circumstances, consultation with the parties...