Results 9,321-9,340 of 35,575 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I thank the Vice Chairman. It is to be hoped there will be no more technical difficulties. It is frustrating that we cannot have these meetings in Leinster House given all of the technical difficulties we are having. I welcome the witnesses to the committee and appreciate, not for the first time, their time and input on this Bill and the wider issue of moneylending. I welcome Mr....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: Okay. I am proposing a limit, as author of this legislation, three times the average cost of credit. Taking a six-month to two-year old charge of interest on a €1,000 loan, if the legislation is enacted as I propose, it would mean the cost of credit that a moneylender could charge would be a maximum of €186 for that €1,000 loan. That would clearly be down significantly...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate that. I appreciate Ms O'Connor's comments that MABS supports the principle of this Bill. I have outlined the changes I would like to see but could the witness describe to the committee the kind of cycle of debt that borrowers and some of the MABS clients fall into as a result of interest charged by moneylenders? Could she expand on that? There is also the issue mentioned by...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I will come back in later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: Yes, I do. I was concluding with Ms O'Connor. I echo the comments of Deputy Paul Donnelly and commend all the organisations on the work they are doing. It would be valuable for the committee to hear from them again about the overall debt situation and where people are at. We hear from the Central Bank's reports that there are surpluses in savings but there are two types of stories and,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate Mr. Joyce's comments. I know our submission came quite late in the day but I want to tease out the issue of collection charges. This is an opportune time to move on this issue because the pandemic has impacted on the way moneylenders have operated. Door-to-door collection was the nature of moneylending and is one of the reasons many people go to a moneylender, because of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Consumer Credit (Amendment) Bill 2018: Discussion (Resumed) (17 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I thank Mr. Joyce. I will make a final comment as I know this is the end of the pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill, which has been quite lengthy. I hope we can now get the pre-legislative scrutiny report and move to Committee Stage. The question I will ask has been posed to me by somebody else so I am plagiarising. If we as an Oireachtas committee were to design a system, would we...

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Driver Licences (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: 75. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the process involved in advance of applying for a limousine licence for new unregistered vehicles not listed on the considered qualifying list on the RSA website; the way it is determined how a new vehicle meets the criteria; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32320/21]

Written Answers — Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport: Driver Licences (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: 76. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if a driver licence can be extended for a person (details supplied) in County Donegal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32321/21]

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: 140. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a post-primary school transport route (details supplied) will be extended with the capacity increased to meet demand; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32322/21]

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: 185. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if a review can be accepted in exceptional circumstances for a person (details supplied) to resolve a national childcare scheme issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32323/21]

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciated the witnesses coming before the committee and telling their stories. Some are before the committee for a second time. I will begin with Mr. Butler. I thank him for his opening statement. In it, he said some banks will only advance Covid-19 loans to customers reclassifying themselves as non-consumers, thus enabling banks to use unfair terms and avoid tracker examination by...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: Has the bank in question provided any rationale for the designation of the individual as a non-consumer rather than a consumer? Would Mr. Butler's client be happy to share both pieces of documentation with the committee, in whatever redacted format is deemed suitable, so we could follow this up with the financial institution in question?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: That is something the committee could possibly take up with both the institution at the heart of this but also with the Central Bank on the broader issue in terms of how banks are able to define a customer as a consumer or a non-consumer and the rationale of the criteria set out for that. I would be happy to follow up on that, as I am sure would the committee. I thank Mr. Kavanagh for his...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: What is the core argument of the 23 agents? Is it that they were let go or encouraged to mis-sell? In Mr. Kavanagh's words, what is the core argument they have with the EBS?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I understand that. It would be impossible for them to show that it was a mis-sold product. Could Mr. Kavanagh give an example of the type of products that he was being asked to push on his customers? I think of laypeople who may not be involved in the purchase of these type of products. What kind of products were they and how were they not suitable for certain individuals?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: Let me play devil's advocate. The EBS has avoided this issue and in spite of the great efforts of the Chair to have someone accountable from the EBS come before us, it has continually avoided coming in and dealing with this issue. We will continue to pursue it. What would Mr. Kavanagh say, if for example, the EBS was to say it did not force agents to mis-sell the product, that it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: We have that. I wanted to give Mr. Kavanagh an opportunity to put that on the record at this meeting. After contracts were terminated with the witnesses, do they have any information or evidence to suggest that this type of practice continued with new agents? Do they have an estimate of the number of products that EBS was involved in mis-selling?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate Mr. Kavanagh's evidence. We have the letter from the gardaí saying that they are not following up on this. A significant problem is that some of these matters are not deemed criminal offences. We need to clamp down on this and make these criminal offences. We in Sinn Féin hope to follow up on this with the Central Bank, AIB and EBS.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Banking Matters: Discussion (16 Jun 2021)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate that. I thank Mr. Lawlor again for putting his information and personal story on the record. This is a scandal. These things start with one person. A comment was made earlier about how whistle-blowers are sometimes perceived as contrarians, cranks or such. If somebody said a number of years ago that every single bank that had sold a tracker mortgage in the country had ripped...