Results 9,041-9,060 of 16,492 for speaker:Ciarán Lynch

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: I have looked at this in the United States of America and there is a significant difference between a vacant site levy and derelict site legislation. There is a great deal to be offered in those terms as it deals with many things the derelict site stuff does not deal with. In the United States of America, this has been quite effective and had a secondary benefit where a property is in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: The next question is for Ms Randall and Mr. Jordan together. In the midst of the catastrophe and as legacy issues play out, is there an opportunity for two things to happen which are not being looked at? The Irish private residential market has involved an individual owning two or three properties in a dispersed mode - a flat, a house and something bought recently; one mortgage-free,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: Of those, are approximately 60,000 in negative equity and mortgage distress?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: I met with a group last night and it is not the REITS programme but another way of looking at the problem. Properties could be institutionalised and put into long-term pension funds. The active side of the loan could be put into something more structured and the legacy debt dealt with through a pension fund. If the approach was taken of an institutionalised, private rented sector, could we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: We will organise the proceedings into periods of 15 minutes or so. I welcome the delegates again. The reason we are meeting at this time of year, when we should be winding down for the summer, is because the budget is now in October. I very much appreciate the adjustment the delegates made to their schedules in submitting proposals at this time of the year. In the past, they might only...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: I welcome Mr. Patrick Davitt, chief executive officer, Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers, IPAV; Ms Niamh Randall, head of policy and communications, Simon Communities of Ireland; Mr. Mike Allen, director of advocacy, Focus Ireland; and Mr. Bob Jordan, chief executive, Threshold. The format of the meeting will be a round table discussion on the environment and housing based on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: Is the Senator referring to practices by moneylenders?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: Delegates from the Central Bank have appeared before the committee to discuss this issue, including concerns that Wonga and other companies might be targeting the Irish market. It was a satisfactory meeting in the sense that we were assured that the current licensing arrangements in this country are not attractive to Wonga because they are quite tight in comparison with those applying in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: I thank the witnesses for giving their time to the committee this afternoon. I am sure their pre-budget submissions will be taken on board by members Their contributions will form part of the report this committee will submit to the Department of Finance following the conclusion of our hearings tomorrow. I propose that we suspend for half an hour before commencing the next module. Is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: I wish to make an intervention; I will give the Senator back the time. Representatives of Social Justice Ireland appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht when I chaired that committee. We produced a very substantive report on the future of Irish Water. Much of the discussion at that time broke into two areas. There was the universal...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: What prompted me to make the intervention is this. The difficulty with the universal allowance is that although Irish Water will never be privatised - it is in the legislation - it has to operate under a corporate structure.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: The Deputy may disagree. The Deputy's problem is that every time he hears a fact he does not like, he disagrees with it. This is provided for in legislation, unless a government comes in and changes the legislation.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: Irish Water must operate as a corporate entity. It must have books that balance at the end of the year and must comply with the requirements of the regulator. For me to say there is a universal allowance there is akin to saying, "Let's go to Doheny and Nesbitt when we finish here at 5 o'clock and every second pint is free, but the first pint will cost a tenner." This is what happens when...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: Ms Fahy does not need the information; she just knows corporatively that it is a fact. If Irish Water has a free allowance it will need to apply a cost to make the structure of the company corporatively sound.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: We have it with the household benefit package. Ms Fahy would not argue that the household benefit package should be given to multimillionaires. Would she argue that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: I will give back time to Senator Barrett. I call Ms Murphy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: We will explicitly deal with the matter in the next session because the Housing Agency will be present.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: The Deputy has a couple of minutes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: The Senator's words remind me of the British comedian Frankie Howerd, who always started his routine by saying something strange happened to him on his way to the Palladium or whatever.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion (Resumed) (16 Jul 2014)

Ciarán Lynch: That is the ability to pay argument as opposed to the blanket argument that one should not be paying.