Results 4,361-4,380 of 74,100 for speaker:Bernard Durkan

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Could I ask for a clearer definition of windfall versus core spending or whatever? For example, I would presume that there is a difference between the two. Windfall spending is rising to the occasion when it is necessary to deal with a particular problem in a particular way, given the economic circumstances prevailing at the time. I identify core spending as regular spending that is needed...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: How does IFAC view the principles, which I think are correct, of setting savings aside, whether it is called a rainy day fund, a sovereign fund or whatever? Having regard to the degree to which Ireland is a small country affected by economic shifts and changes outside the country to a large extent, how does the IFAC see such funds evolving? For instance, there are those who say that we need...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Many of Professor McMahon's proposals, and I have attended these meetings throughout the summer and before the recess many times, carry the wish, and I can understand that from past experience, of spreading the tax burden or increasing the tax burden. My question then follows, does that affect inflation? By spreading the burden, does it affect inflation to a greater or lesser extent given...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Is Professor McMahon satisfied that inflation is being reduced to the greatest extent possible by the measures taken so far, which are essentially increases in interest rates?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: By how much?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I thank Professor McMahon.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I agree with Dr. McDonnell. To prepare for shocks, we need to refer to trends on an ongoing basis with a view to trying to avoid the kind of shocks that we have had in the past. Does he think that our current national debt functions in the proper direction and is proportionately dropping according to the strength of the economy? Giving that the growth of the economy will have an impact on...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I have a final question. What would the witnesses say to people on the average industrial wage or on €50,000 or thereabouts who complain, with justification, that they have little spending capacity, are facing difficulties in cost-of-living matters and that these issues are continuing? What is the best means of addressing the situation of that particular group? On the basis of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I welcome our guests and thank them for their attendance and the information they have given. I support the points raised earlier by Deputy Doherty on the deficiencies in various housing developments all over the country and the various issues that have arisen in regard to defects. I strongly support the encouragement to bring together all the constituent bodies that might have had, or...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Slowly.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Will it happen more quickly?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: There is a problem there now. The lender has or seems to have the right to reject what the borrower puts forward. From experience, and my colleagues here around the House have had similar difficulties, if the lender says that is not sustainable, that it cannot do that and that it is not the bank's policy to do that, all of which we have heard previously, that is where the officials in the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I agree that is the way it is supposed to work but, unfortunately, it does not always work that way.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: It is the unworkables that I want to target in this particular area. We have all dealt with them, right from the beginning ten years ago. The problem is as great today in some cases as it was ten years ago because, as Ms Rowland must bear in mind, countless proposals were made to the lending institutions at the beginning made up of warehousing parts of the mortgage and the longest possible...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: They cannot, because they are on a fixed income. We need to deal with that somehow. I will finish off on the question of moral hazard or whatever they call it nowadays whereby an individual write-down was not available. I and members here have dealt with cases where payments have been made every month for the past 15 or 20 years but, because of the banking crash, they were not able to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: Why not all of them?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I said I was not going to intervene anymore. I just want to finish with a last sentence. I finished my mortgage and concluded it successfully in the past couple of years. I paid 19% and 20%. If you missed a payment, you paid a 23% or 24% penalty, so you never got out of that if you missed two or three instalments. However, I borrowed on the basis of the value of the property at the time,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I thank our visitors for the useful information they have given us and assure them of a steady stream of communications from the Members of the Houses who have been dealing with these situations with a lot of frustration for a long number of years. It should be remembered we have had situations in which financial houses have appeared on the doorsteps of widows when they came home from work...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Banking Issues: Central Bank (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I do not know whether or not it was, but there are a lot of other pubs around the place. The cash flow is the issue. I am surprised that the regulatory institutions have not zoomed in on them to the same extent. All our salaries are paid by the State and accounted for - they have to be accounted for - and the Revenue Commissioners have been very quick to tell us when suddenly we get money...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (Resumed): Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Nevin Economic Research Institute (20 Sep 2023)

Bernard Durkan: I thank our guests for coming here and giving their expert opinion. To what extent should there be a link with the retention of reserves for future emergencies? Given that our total national debt is €225 billion or thereabouts, should there be a link and policies put in place? Are we putting in place policies? I think that we are. Should we put in place policies that make a...