Results 6,921-6,940 of 40,330 for speaker:Leo Varadkar

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Covid-19 Pandemic (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Registrar of Companies is a statutory role and the Registrar has administrative independence in the exercise of this function.  In light of the Covid-19 situation, the Registrar had taken a number of decisions during 2020 to assist companies with the filing of annual returns. Most recently, in October 2020, the Registrar announced that any company with an Annual Return Date from...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Brexit Issues (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: My Department, together with its agencies, is carefully monitoring the impact of the new post-Brexit trading arrangements. At this point, I am not aware of any reports from companies in the pharmaceutical sector regarding shortages of medicines, ingredients or other intermediate inputs.

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Covid-19 Pandemic (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: Under Level 5 of the Plan for Living with COVID-19, only essential retail outlets will remain open.  Further information can be found on https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/2dc71-level-5/.  The decision to move to full scale Level 5 was not taken lightly and all factors were considered. All measures in Level 5 will stay in place until at least March 5 2021. S.I. No. 701 of 2020 Health...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I am keenly aware that businesses are making a massive sacrifice to protect their communities and I am committed to ensuring that the Government will offer as much assistance and support as possible. My Department has worked to ensure that appropriate financial supports are in place for businesses that require finance as they develop their response to their exposure to impacts arising from...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I recognise the impact that this pandemic is having on businesses right across the country. I know that employers and employees want to get back to work and I support them in that ambition, but it must be safe to do so. In order to assist businesses to address the challenges posed by COVID-19, the Government has put in place a comprehensive suite of supports for firms of all sizes. These...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: IDA Ireland (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: When it comes to foreign direct investment (FDI), site visits represent a valuable tool through which investors can be encouraged to invest in regional areas. However, site visit activity does not necessarily reflect investment potential, as a significant percentage of all new FDI comes from existing IDA client companies.  2020 has presented undeniable challenges to our ongoing efforts...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Covid-19 Pandemic Supports (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The Covid-19 pandemic has wrought significant hardship to businesses right across our economy.  Whilst those businesses who have been forced to close have obviously been most impacted, Government appreciates that many businesses including those deemed ‘essential’ have also suffered greatly. It is important to note the wide range of aids that have been developed by...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Work Permits (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The State's employment permit system is designed to supplement Ireland's skills and labour supply over the short to medium term by allowing enterprises to recruit nationals from outside the EEA, where such skills or expertise cannot be sourced from within the EEA at that time. The system is, by design, vacancy led and managed through the operation of the occupation lists: the critical...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Investor-State Dispute Settlement (3 Feb 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, commonly known as CETA, is one of the EU’s new generation of progressive free trade agreements.  CETA is designed to benefit EU and Canadian companies through improved trade flows in support of increased employment for our citizens.  The elimination of tariffs, reduced trade barriers and simplified customs procedures...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank the Chairman and committee members for the invitation to discuss the general scheme of the companies (corporate enforcement authority) Bill 2018. I am joined by my officials, Nina Brennan, principal officer, who is on the line and will help me out with any hard questions, and Orla O’Brien, assistant principal, from the office as well. By way of background, this legislation...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I think that is Radio 1 or Newstalk joining us.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: As for the ODCE now, the authority will have the power to issue a range of warnings, directions or notices, the power to enter and search premises and take documents or other material, and also the power to bring summary criminal prosecutions. I will now turn to the other elements of the general scheme. The Companies Act 2014 is kept under active review in the light of changing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The premise of the Deputy's question is correct. Although I cannot prove it, I suspect that breaches of company, competition and tax law are considerable and much greater in number than we realised. Obviously, there are various bodies that pursue the perpetrators. The Revenue Commissioners are very well resourced and do a really great job. There are also the CCPC and the ODCE, which is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: That is a good question. We would probably leave it to the Garda. Ms Brennan or Ms O'Brien may wish to address that as they were involved in the talks with other Departments.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: The way I see it is all fraud is wrong, be it tax fraud, company fraud or welfare fraud. Some people make a distinction between them based on perceptions around the social class of the offender but my view is that anyone who is committing fraud is stealing from the public and stealing from society so in whatever brief I hold, I intend to take a hard line on these issues. I did so at the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I do not want to talk about individual cases because I do not get involved in them for obvious reasons. It is best that I do not. The Department of Social Protection estimates that it saves approximately €500 million a year in fraud and control measures. If it did not do what it is doing, that is the kind of money we would be losing every year. I am not privy to the report Senator...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I normally have them. I think it is in the file that the ODCE took four cases and won four prosecutions. That is often forgotten.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I think Senator Gavan is leaving out how well resourced the Revenue Commissioners are. They pursue tax fraud and they are probably better resourced than the Department of Social Protection in pursuing social welfare fraud. This agency is only for one specific area relating to the Companies Act the Senator mentioned. The idea that came from the Law Reform Commission was to have an FBI-type...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: To answer the first question, yes, I believe the laws and offences are robust in this area. As the Deputy knows, the Company Law Review Group, CLRG, does a lot of work with us on updating the law all of the time, and we are going to keep doing that. The issue around the experts in the room has come up a few times and came up in my discussions with the director as well, so we are going to...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation: General Scheme of Companies (Corporate Enforcement Authority) Bill 2018 (Resumed): Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment (29 Jan 2021)

Leo Varadkar: I thank Deputy Stanton for his questions. When it comes to having access to that new electronic information - although it is not that new anymore - which may be on servers, in the cloud or held electronically elsewhere, we will try to deal with it in the police powers Bill. Therefore, that will be done across the board, not just for company law offences but for the Revenue Commissioners,...