Results 6,201-6,220 of 26,842 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I was. Apologies. I know there is something buzzing behind me. I will genuinely try to be brief.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We have set out our positions and they are clearly divergent. However, it is necessary to answer the questions the Minister put, so that there is no suggestion that there is a lack of internal logic in the arguments that socialists are putting forward on this point. Our argument was and remains that the assets and the means by which one can produce the housing that is necessary, both...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I move amendment No. 106: In page 122, between lines 9 and 10, to insert the following: “Report of Minister 58.The Minister shall, by 31 December 2022, lay a report before both Houses of the Oireachtas reviewing the financial impact of the exit of Ulster Bank and KBC from the Irish market on Allied Irish Bank and Bank of Ireland, whether the levy on certain financial institutions...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: These amendments are well directed. The 10% being charged on some residential property, where it is over nine properties, is completely inadequate to deal with the phenomena of the big property investment vehicles coming in here and bulk buying property. No measure has been taken by the Government to prevent them bulk buying apartments. If the levy is imposed on some parts of the housing...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Absolutely. There was a policy choice or a decision made at that time which was to bring these entities in. At least the Government is remaining consistent because it still thinks they should be here. It is defending the decision to invite them in, it is defending the decision to keep them here, and it is suggesting they are going to contribute even now to resolving the housing crisis. I...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Bodies (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I hope the Taoiseach and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage will address urgently what I hope is an unintended consequence of a new statutory instrument that was introduced in March of this year. The instrument changed the income assessment arrangements for social housing. I have been trying to get to the bottom of this because I am dealing with a family of eight who...

Ceisteanna - Questions: Departmental Bodies (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 12. To ask the Taoiseach if he will report on the work of the housing and infrastructure unit of his Department. [54563/21]

An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: With the decision to impose a curfew after midnight on nightlife and the recommendations to work from home from Friday, many people who work in those areas or who depend on those areas for work will lose income and, in many cases, or lose their jobs outright. Against that background, it is completely unacceptable that today we should be reducing the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. Not...

Written Answers — Department of Defence: United Nations (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 329. To ask the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence if the recent decision to extend the Army Ranger's deployment to Mali as part of the MINUSMA mission required the triple-lock and specifically Dáil Éireann approval; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55488/21]

Written Answers — Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine: Forestry Sector (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 662. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine further to Parliamentary Question No. 1255 of 2 November 2021, if his attention has been drawn to clear fell sites which have not fulfilled their replanting obligation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55471/21]

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I would like to speak to our amendment. Let me say that, in spite of whatever allegations the Minister may throw at others, we are consistent in putting forward alternative proposals to raise revenue to provide for our objective to significantly increase expenditure in housing, health, education, and in other key infrastructures and services. We do so consistently every year. We have been...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Rural Independent Group's proposed amendment No. 2 is exactly the same amendment that we put forward for the past few years, so fair play to the Rural Independent Group in that regard. I would like to put this on record, and I said it during the budget. The total income that comes to PAYE workers, or to the 2.8 million workers who pay tax and USC, is €130 billion. Their total...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2021: Committee Stage (16 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The universal social charge was imposed in the context of austerity and it was a very severe additional tax burden imposed on working people. It remains, despite the fact the financial emergency has now passed. We have moved from a situation of virtual economic collapse to one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe and one in which, I repeat, profits have gone through the roof even in...