Results 981-1,000 of 27,016 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----and should have allowed those representatives to be questioned about the company's tax affairs?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: It is not just any old taxpayer.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We will certainly agree to disagree on that one.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I think most ordinary people in this country would say that if they were accused of taking money from the people that the people should have had, they would be chased down by the State for doing that. In some cases they might even end up in prison for doing it, such as for TV licences and so on. I think most people would find that pretty difficult to stomach. At the time, some of us said...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We will agree to disagree.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister has answered it. I am amazed that the Government does not regret what has happened. If we had had that money, it might have made a difference. We could now possibly do with that money but it seems to me that it would have made a dramatic difference to the current housing crisis that we are facing had we had access to that money then and had the Government pursued it instead of...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Let me put it to you-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes, I know. Nonetheless, that is a very worrying admission on the Minister’s part. Nobody is disputing that we need 50,000, 60,000 or maybe 70,000 houses a year but what the Minister seems to be saying is that it might be overheating the economy to try to deliver that. The Central Bank is talking about a timeline. Does the Minister accept that we are, therefore, facing a deficit...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: There are other ways around the overheating issue.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That sounds like we are facing into at least a decade, if not more, of a housing crisis. If we do not meet those targets, it is going to accumulate, just like the deficit we already have.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I have a question on another area. There was an announcement in July of this year that the recruitment embargo had been lifted in the health service. I did not know at the time but have been informed by workers in my local hospital, St. Michael’s, and subsequently by the National Rehabilitation Hospital people when I went to the opening of the new wing there, and it has been...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is what I am being told by the workers.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Even if the staffing levels are unsafe.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am saying that the staffing levels are unsafe.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Engagement (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Either you can meet the targets or you cannot.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The witnesses are probably not going to acknowledge this point but it is worth saying, because it is what everybody else thinks, that it is not just about what the State could have sold the loans at had we held on to them but it is also about what it could have used them for instead of selling them. To my mind this is the biggest scandal of it all. The State had the biggest property...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: How much of that is public and affordable, or is it mostly private?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I know Senator Higgins wants to get in, but I will very quickly ask another question. Mr. Carville stated that approximately 6,000 units are in the long-term category.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will conclude on this point. It is crazy that we are being asked to look at this legislation before we know all the detail of precisely what is happening with what NAMA has, what could be done with it and the options that are available. All of it should be maximised to deliver social and affordable housing as quickly as possible. It should be serviced and whatever needs to be done to it...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: General Scheme of the Conclusion of IBRC Special Liquidation and Dissolution of NAMA Bill: Department of Finance (18 Sep 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Mr. Carville's response is appreciated. I thank Senator Higgins for allowing me to conclude.