Results 6,261-6,280 of 26,842 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: The amendment is to exclude data centres.

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: We want a report. We want to see how data centres benefit and how much additional revenue we would raise by excluding them from these accelerated capital allowances. That is in the context of our wider belief that it runs completely counter to our climate objectives for the Government to continue to facilitate the construction of data centres which are going to suck up enormous amounts of...

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: Obviously our intent is to completely discourage the further construction of data centres. If I understand the Minister correctly, they do not benefit specifically because they are data centres, but as data centres they can benefit in terms of the equipment that they purchase as part of their establishment. That is pretty much what I think the Minister is saying and he does not know the...

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: I appreciate the explanation, but pardon me if what is happening here is still less than crystal clear. Transfer pricing rules are attempting to deal with some of the things we discussed earlier, such as the tax avoidance strategies we know companies engage in whereby there are multiple companies associated with each other within a particular group. The Minister is saying there are checks...

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: I ask that they also be circulated to non-members.

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: I believe that when the history books are written, what happened with the property and housing sector in this country after the crash, with the tax set-up and the political decision, as I see it, to invite investment vehicles into the country to "refloat" the Irish property sector, will turn out to be one of the greatest mistakes ever made in this State. It has contributed directly to the...

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: To me, that is tax avoidance and it is big multinational corporations essentially writing their own tax bill. The Government facilitates that. It has been battled in courts and all the rest of it but at least some people in the EU Commission believed we were giving tax rulings to certain companies in order to allow this kind of thing to happen. It is scandalous. Our argument is that the...

Forestry Sector: Motion (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I also want to mention the students of Coláiste Éinde in Galway, because they get it, in asking for the forest of the children, foraois na bpáistí, initiative of planting a native broadleaf tree for every child in the country. Monty Python came to mind for many reasons when I was thinking about this debate, partly, because we just keep going around in circles in a...

Saincheisteanna Tráthúla - Topical Issue Debate: Harbours and Piers (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister of State should not be so modest.

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister first became a Minister in the Fine Gael-Labour Party Government in 2011. This was the Government that in its programme said it would eradicate homelessness in five years. That Government made a decision in June 2011 to discontinue capital investment in social housing and to rely instead on the outsourcing of social housing to the private sector. Since 2011, average rents have...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It was not an accident, it was not an emergency, it was a policy. Let us just be honest about it. It was a policy. The reason so few houses were built in the year the Minister referred to was because a policy decision was made in 2011 to discontinue them. Meanwhile, we were selling properties, which we are now renting back at extraordinary cost. The target for HAP, RAS and leasing was...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Schemes (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I appreciate what the Minister said. I and, more importantly, people in the sector have campaigned for this for a long time because income and employment insecurity is rampant. While I welcome this measure, let us not sit back on our laurels and act as if this is a panacea. We should remember that the background to this, which I acknowledge predates the Minister's tenure, is that we see...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Schemes (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: As I said, I genuinely welcome this pilot. It is a step forward. It is a pity it took a pandemic for us to realise just how important culture and arts are to us and how life is so much diminished when those in the sector are not able to perform live and so on. I hope we have learned something from the pandemic in this regard. While I welcome the scheme, does the fact that it is for three...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Schemes (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 109. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the criteria and timeline for the pilot scheme for arts and culture workers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55224/21]

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Departmental Schemes (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I refer to the basic income pilot scheme for workers in arts and culture sector. Will the Minister give assurances that all disciplines of arts, culture and music and the crew that support the artists and performers, will be eligible to apply for the pilot scheme?

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Film Industry (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is quite an extraordinary response from the Minister. In the beginning it was referred to as "a studio". This studio was set up with the assistance of Seán Lemass in 1958. It then became the National Film Studios of Ireland in the 1970s. It was where "My Left Foot" and "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" were filmed. I could go through the list of classic films. This is part...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Film Industry (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: What the EU says is countries are supposed to create with state aid to the film industry a permanent pool of skills and labour. Virtually nobody has a job in the Irish film industry. They go from film to film, as the producers keep saying. In cases before the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, at the moment, film producers have come in and said to people who worked on those film...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Film Industry (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It will transform their lives with a lot of cash. It will put big money in their pockets.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Film Industry (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: 105. To ask the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her views on the recent sale of a studio (details supplied) to a large real estate corporation particularly given that the State had only recently disposed of its share of the studios and that the studios have received large amounts of public funding over many years; her further views on whether it is now time to take the...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Film Industry (11 Nov 2021)

Richard Boyd Barrett: In the dead of August, a time when shady deals are often done, Ardmore Studios was sold to an American capital investment firm called Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital, an American real estate firm. This is the former national film studios set up in 1958 with State assistance. It was the National Film Studios of Ireland in the 1970s and it has now been handed over to a real...