Results 10,721-10,740 of 32,593 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy. I begin with the scenario of a no-deal Brexit. Brexit occurring without a trade deal would have a significant impact on how we would have expected our economy to perform next year. I will give two figures to illustrate what that context would look like. In the absence of a trade deal, post-Brexit, we expect the economy to grow by around 1% to 1.5% next year. If a...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I have made the decision not to do an economic budgetary forecast on budget day beyond next year, which is a decision that does not have much precedent because, even in putting together budgets many years ago when things were very unpredictable, it was always possible to put together an outlook regarding what we thought the economy would look like in two years' time. Precisely because of the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: It is too early to be able to give the Deputy confirmation of that. The Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, and I are meeting the Ministers with responsibility for different sectors and I am also meeting representatives of many of these sectors directly. I meet those who work on the front line in the different sectors regularly to hear what it is like working in the various parts of our...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: We are looking at the question of what amounts of additional expenditure will not roll over into next year. This always happens on budget day when we have the fabled "one-offs" and must assess whether something that happens in a particular year will continue into the next year. However, the complexity involved in doing that at the moment is significant. Even earlier this year, for example,...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The management of health expenditure in October, November and December is always a major part of the budgetary jigsaw at this point in the year but we are in a very different position from that of other years because of the possibility and risk of our country having to deal with Covid-19 during the normal flu season. At a time when we are trying to keep our schools open and encourage people...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: It would take great wisdom to be able to say now what we believe fiscal rules are going to be. Fiscal rules, by their nature, are medium-term and try to set out the arrangements for a number of years. It is fine to advise that this be done but to set figures, begin the debate now and try to set targets for the rules would not be appropriate for the economy now or for the encouragement of an...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The aim of carbon taxation is to implement the programme for Government commitment to another move and change in carbon taxation in this budget. Our objective is to recycle all the additional revenue for very clear purposes. The first of these purposes is to seek to protect anybody who would be at risk of fuel poverty and adversely affected by moves in carbon taxation. The second purpose...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I believe this is the first time the Deputy and I have ever sat on the same side of a committee room.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I think we already have one. One might have to be more optimistic to see it leading to policy agreement.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with each of those points in turn. We have figures of the breakdown by sector of people in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, and wage subsidy scheme. I will have those figures sent to the committee. The composition will not come as a surprise to members and the sectors affected most include construction, retail and hospitality. They formed a very large share...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for his questions. On the timings for Revised Estimates, Cabinet earlier this week agreed a set of Revised Estimates. Earlier today, I was fixing a time with the finance committee as to when the finance Estimates would come before it. Many Estimates will be coming before the relevant committees over the next few weeks. The Deputy asked about the Social Insurance Fund and...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with the Deputy's queries in reverse order. We will have to learn the lessons from the two different wage subsidy schemes that we brought in. I believe there are elements of those wage subsidy schemes that will become more permanent features of where we will be in the future. I am not saying a wage subsidy scheme would always be "on" and operational but we will have to reflect...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: If we look at the level of supports made available since July, it is an indication of the kind of policy measures likely to be needed for 2021. These measures included the wage subsidy scheme, the continuation of the pandemic unemployment payments until next year, although at a reduced level from where they were at the crisis, and the availability of restart grants. Do I believe we can keep...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: We have made a commitment on the funding of rates. For three quarters of this year, we have committed that the Exchequer would centrally fund rates income across that period. I am sure that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, are looking at what kind of commitment we can...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I made the decision not to go ahead with a revaluation in November of this year. That was mostly for practical reasons. To be able to go ahead with that and for the Revenue Commissioners to be able to implement it, we would have had to have legislation passed relating to all of that across May and June of this year. For many reasons, that simply was not possible to do because there was...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I can deal with each of those in turn. I will begin with accessing airlines and so on. It is the case that many very high-profile national carriers in other countries have received funding from their own governments. It is a tribute to the way in which a number of very big airlines are run here in Ireland that they are able to keep access going and the support they have received is a...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: In terms of the existing provisions, there are two important dimensions to it. The first is the supports that have been made available through Enterprise Ireland as we have got ready to deal with Brexit over many years. The supports that are available, primarily from Enterprise Ireland, EI, have been really important components of helping employers and companies get ready for dealing with...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The statements from the Tánaiste today reflect the debate which is always under way on how we can deal with the public health consequences of this disease and try to get people back to work and keep them in their jobs. The Tánaiste, the Taoiseach, myself and the Cabinet are always looking at what that balance is and how we can get it right and that is what has underpinned the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes, there are two that I would pick out at the moment. The first one is the employment wage subsidy scheme. I hope in the next 48 hours to be clear about the number of employers who are on the scheme and the number of people affected and supported by the scheme. The two wage subsidy schemes we brought in are among the most effective economic policies ever introduced in our country.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-budget Engagement: Minister for Finance (1 Oct 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for the clarification. We are seeing it in the number of people who have moved from the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP. If we look at the number of construction workers who have moved from being on the PUP, which they were in March and April, I am certain that if we had not given clarity regarding what our public capital spending was going to be later on in the year...