Results 10,141-10,160 of 33,280 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: There will be a summer economic statement, although I will have to consult within Government regarding the format of the SES. Many of the difficulties we had in respect of economic uncertainty will be better than they were a year ago. I still anticipate they will be present in a way that will be unlike many other years. Anyway, there will be an SES, but I will have to agree the format with...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy. First, I believe there should be engagement between the relevant Oireachtas committee and myself or the Minister, Deputy McGrath, or both, regarding the submission to the recovery and resilience fund, but I do not believe it should be the subject of a resolution from the Dáil. It is a matter for the Government to decide on what our application is going to be and we...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I emphasise and agree with the remarks of the Minister, Deputy McGrath. We are in a public health emergency and have emergency economic measures in place to help our society and, indeed, Europe deal with this pandemic. This week we are directly supporting the income of just over a million of our fellow citizens in terms of those who were on jobseeker’s payments before this crisis and...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I will take that question. If by referring to a short sharp movement the Deputy means a very rapid withdrawal of the measures we have in place and trying to move from having a deficit to being in balance in a very short period, that is not what we are envisaging. It will take time for our economy and society to recover. A withdrawal too quickly of the measures we have in place could be...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I will just make three points. The Deputy is correct to call out the fairly significant increase in household savings. I understand that the last set of figures that were produced by the Central Statistics Office indicated that the level of household savings in the economy for the quarter in which they measured it had increased by nearly one third. Such a level of increase is a significant...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: How the money is used his key.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I will come in on that. I agree with the point the Deputy made about the language of how we communicate where we are on economic policy. I was engaged in a one-man campaign in the previous Dáil to banish the terms "gross fiscal space" and "net fiscal space" from any conversation in which I was involved, and the Deputy's words will encourage me to keep at it. We need to challenge...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: Hands-free?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: It sounds like a bicycle rather than a budget, does it not?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: If I could come in there, I believe that the balance of decision-making between the Oireachtas and the Government is broadly correct. Putting together a budget, with all the decisions relating to it, is at the core of the ability of a Government to do its work, meet its commitments in the programme for Government and to have the ability to initiate and complete an annual budgetary process....

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: Not for long.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I just said that the Deputy will not be mute for long. I meant that in a humorous way.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I will begin by offering some thoughts on the debt issues raised by Deputy Boyd Barrett. Most of the figures he referenced in regard to the debt forecast are correct. By the end of last year, our debt stood at €219 billion, which is an increase of approximately €15 billion versus what we estimated it would be. Taking the two year period of last year and this year together,...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: We have not considered CETA as a cause of risk in our forecasting for tax revenue. We have outlined many other issues that could impact on corporate tax revenue and on the performance of different tax heads but we do not assign a risk to the future of CETA in terms of the impact that it could have on our tax flows. It is not recorded as a risk in our tax revenue forecasting models.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: The Tánaiste announced today a further set of initiatives to try to deal with those who are experiencing great hardship due to this disease but do not have the ability to participate in the CRSS. He has launched a fund today that is designed to support businesses that have premises but those premises are not public facing. For example, it could be a premises of a business that does not...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I must ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform to address that question because the issue is under his direct control and I do not want to mislead the Deputy.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I would expect that when we have a more rounded set of indicators regarding how our budgets perform, progress on them will take time and that progress will be year by year and step by step. If I was to look at how we could do better than that, I think we should pick a very particular area of Government expenditure that could have a larger effect on well-being and make some choices, for...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Framework for Parliamentary Engagement Throughout the Budgetary Cycle: Discussion (9 Feb 2021)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with each of the Deputy's points in turn. We are reviewing the operation of the different schemes. The Deputy's analysis of them is pretty fair. Some of them have been successful in releasing credit to particular kinds of companies while with other schemes, in particular the credit guarantee scheme, we have not seen the drawdown of a large amount of much of that facility yet....