Results 1,041-1,060 of 35,536 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

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

Pearse Doherty: In relation to the tax package in last year's budget, half of the population of workers benefitted by €870 while the other half of workers got just above €300. The Minister was out this week saying that average workers will benefit by €1,000 but he knows that the young nurse earning €37,000 did not get the €800 benefit last year. Half of workers will not...

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

Pearse Doherty: The Minister knows that over half of workers do not pay tax at the higher rate which means that the average worker does not benefit from the change that the Government is planning. The Minister told the media that average workers will benefit to the tune of €1,000. Can he tell this committee, to which he is accountable, albeit that the media has an important job to do as well,...

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

Pearse Doherty: With respect, the Minister set it out to the media a couple of days ago. Why can he not give the same commitment to the budgetary oversight committee, to which he is accountable? Is it because those who earn €40,000 will not benefit to the tune of €1,000, in the same way that they did not benefit last year and the Minister does not want to puncture the spin of the Government...

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

Pearse Doherty: That is not the question I asked. I did not ask whether it was progressive or not. I asked if the Minister can give a commitment to average workers on €40,000. Will they get €1,000? He was happy to spin that at his party's think-in but he is unable, under questioning, to say the same thing here because he did not do it last year and is unlikely to do it this year. Is that...

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

Pearse Doherty: The Minister is unwilling to give the commitment that he gave to the media because he did not do it last year and is unlikely to do it this year. Let me ask the Minister another question-----

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

Pearse Doherty: No they did not. The average worker on €40,000 did not. That is a mistruth that the Minister is presenting to this committee and he knows it. The Minister put out a press release saying that he is going to increase the standard fund threshold to €2.8 million. We are talking here about gold-plated pensions. At this point, someone can retire on €72,000 or...

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

Pearse Doherty: How much will it cost?

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

Pearse Doherty: The Minister put out a press release saying that he is increasing the standard fund threshold to €2.8 million. I want to know how much that policy costs.

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

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister know how much the policy costs?

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

Pearse Doherty: How much does that cost?

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

Pearse Doherty: The number of people who actually had a pension pot above €2 million in the last year for which data is available from Revenue is just over 230. These are gold-plated pensions that are costing hundreds of millions of euro. Ordinary taxpayers, people who are working in Tesco at the minute, are paying taxes to subsidise these pensions. The Minister not only wants to see these...

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

Pearse Doherty: The last time Fianna Fáil was in government, yes.

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

Pearse Doherty: No, the taxpayer should not be subsidising pensions that are in excess of €80,000. That is what the Minister is planning to do.

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

Pearse Doherty: Really, the Minister is just spending some of the surpluses next year because they are already banked this year. This is not money that the Minister is expecting to get next year. It is already banked this year but he is trying to tie it to AIB. Is that the situation?

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)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate the witnesses' attendance at the committee. I want to return to the issues that have been touched on by my two colleagues. The one thing we should never say when talking about the banking collapse, NAMA and the losses that resulted in huge austerity, and perhaps the witnesses did not mean in this way, is that we are all to blame or everyone is to blame, which I think were the...

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)

Pearse Doherty: Excuse me, it did not overpay for the loans. The legislation passed by this House required the valuation at the time to consider an uplift between 0% and 25% and the average uplift was 8.6%. History will tell you, as a property management agency, that the uplift was way above 8.6%. Property has gone through the roof since 2011, yet NAMA did not recover the €74 billion, or anywhere...