Results 6,461-6,480 of 36,764 for speaker:Enda Kenny

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, you're aware of all the ... the way that budgets were always drafted for years where secrecy always applied, and the Minister for Finance of the day came in and read out the budget to the House. We ... the spring economic statement, which is introduced now by the Government, sets out the parameters of the budget, and we're not going beyond that, and that's a €1.2 billion to...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, in the Department of Finance now, the unit is open for all political parties and individuals and groupings to have completely independently verified assessments of the costs of programmes and proposals that they're putting forward. Obviously, you have to have an election next year, and that facility is already, I assume, being used by different parties. I'd like to think that we can...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, I think you can do it either through the ... we've started with the pre-legislative scrutiny of the Oireachtas committees available to all the Deputies and Senators, and I would assume that either through the appropriate finance committee or the scrutiny committee that these things can apply, and rightly so, because it's all taxpayers' money and the people's interest. I'd be of strong...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Yes, if you look back at the statements from 2002 onwards, all of the budgetary statements and the major economic statements that were made. Deputy Bruton - as he was then - pointed out consistently of the bubble that was forming around the ... around the housing, property and construction sector and he had consistently questioned Minister Cowen in respect of bank lending, the stress testing...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, I ... we did actively point out that we were heading in the wrong direction and that we needed to get back to a point where you were lean and competitive, where you were export-orientated, because you were never going to be able to deal with the social consequences of continuing to have public spending increasing at the rate that it was, of borrowing to continue to do that and,...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, as I said, when the question of the guarantee came to me first of all in the morning, my response was you needed, you know, a functioning banking system as the lifeblood of the economy and the guarantee that was ... that was being put up by the Government at the time, we needed to know the conditions of that. Obviously, Fine Gael took a view here that we would support the banking...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, obviously, the Labour Party were perfectly entitled to ... to their view, as a political party, on where they stood on it. I think ... I think Labour wanted to see, I think, all of the details before they would make a decision on the guarantee and obviously Fine Gael took a view that this was a real emergency here, that you were in a really difficult position, that you needed a...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: -----in Greece recently, in terms of liquidity and capacity for people to draw money from banks and do business. So we took the view, "This is a real emergency here." These are the things that we looked for. There were elements of the guarantee, the buffers that were in there, as I've said; the return of the Minister within three days with the new regulatory powers and all the rest of it....

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: No, we wanted these things put in place that would give far greater scrutiny, far greater authority to the Minister for Finance-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: -----and those details would be important, from our point of view.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: But the immediate crisis was that there was an €80 billion, three-buffer zone here and that the Government would come back within three days of the details of the new regulatory regime to be outlined in the House by the Minister for Finance.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Yes, we proposed ... we've done this now, with broadening the tax base in respect of property charges and water charges-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Yes.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: We proposed the expend-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Yes is the answer. We proposed the expenditure cuts, in particular-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: In relation to the benchmarking process, in relation to the whole idea of what was coming through-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: Well, the position was that we accepted the figures for growth from the ESRI and the Department of Finance.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: You're asking me five "Yes" or "No" answers, and you're making a statement here-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Nexus Phase (23 Jul 2015)

Enda Kenny: The first "Yes" or "No" answer, is that, yes, we did propose cuts in public expenditure-----