Results 8,941-8,960 of 36,192 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: We only had one debate in the Dáil in respect of this. The Minister asked a question. I pointed it out to him. If he wants to blame me for his failures as a finance Minister, he can go ahead. I wrote to him stating that the scheme should be designed in such a way as to ensure the supports would not go to dividends or shareholders. I also raised the issue of profitable companies...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Nobody disputes that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I understand that. The Minister cannot say how many companies actually paid out dividends. He cannot state how much money allocated in State support was paid out to shareholders through dividends because he never asked for that information and it is not a condition. This has nothing to do with profitability. What Britain and the Netherlands did was not about profitability; it was a ban on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Did that advice come from the Attorney General?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: The Minister seems to be very hands-off when it comes to this issue, in spite of him being the senior Minister. I heard the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, state on a radio programme that he wanted to find out how British insurance companies were not deducting these payments. The Minister is aware that it was not even 2021, but 2020 when the Association of British Insurers wrote to the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Has the Minister met Insurance Ireland on this issue?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Okay. Has the junior Minister met Insurance Ireland? The Minister referred to communication. Did the junior Minister send Insurance Ireland an email? Has he met the group?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Is that the meeting that took place in December?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: What action has the Minister taken? He is the senior Minister in the Department. What action has he taken in respect of the fact that tens of millions of euro that was given to these companies to keep them alive and afloat and keep their workers in place are ending up in the pockets of insurance companies?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: With respect, that section of the legislation in response to this issue is a joke. That legislation only asks the Central Bank to give the Minister a report on how much the insurance companies have pocketed in pandemic unemployment payments. That is all it does. It is a report to find out how much they took of the pandemic unemployment payments. It does not deal with the issue. We had an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister want the money back or not?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Absolutely, but let me say this.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Of course, I recognise it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: Let me say this. If I was in the Minister's seat, I would not have let the last year and a half pass without meeting a single insurance company or Insurance Ireland about business interruption. I would not have allowed that to happen. I would have asked them directly why their companies are taking some of our pandemic payments here when they are not taking them in the North, in Wales, in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: If the Minister was taxing them, which is what I was suggesting.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: That is-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: That is not what I am arguing.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: No.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: I will leave this point and move on to one last question.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Covid-19 Payments and the Sale of AIB shares: Minister for Finance (19 Jan 2022)

Pearse Doherty: No. I will move on but let me make this point. The Minister is being completely misleading because he has no record to defend himself, and that is his problem. I am not talking about a broad tax on insurance companies. I am saying that the portion of profit they have deducted due to the pandemic payments should be recovered by the State and, on that, the Minister should be meeting them,...