Results 10,801-10,820 of 33,175 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I move amendment No. 128: In page 41, to delete lines 6 to 12 and substitute the following: “ “(6A) (a) Notwithstanding subsection (6), where a debt owed by a bank which is not in the currency of the State, and which is represented by a sum standing to the credit of a person in an account in the bank, is transferred by the person in whole or in part to another account...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The purpose of this section is to support business development and growth by allowing for dilution in shares throughout the period of ownership so that business expansion is not penalised as a result of raising equity in a fast-growing business. This is a minor but helpful change to this section of our tax code and we are not anticipating there being any significant cost or revenue change...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: Are we now speaking on amendment No. 134?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: Okay. Amendment No. 134, as the Deputy has said, focuses on the agricultural sector and amendment No. 133 is much broader than that. He has spoken on amendment No. 134 so I will confine my comments to that for now. The main exposure that the agricultural sector faces to carbon tax is through the use of marked gas oil, MGO, also known as agricultural diesel or green diesel. It is already...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The way this measure differs from other taxes is that we have made a commitment that we will use the revenue raised from this carbon tax to fund the activities needed to lower carbon use in our economy. Unlike every other tax I will debate with the Deputy on the Finance Bill, we will not use the revenue from carbon taxation to fund general expenditure. We are using it purely with the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: In dealing with the different points that have been made, it is worth emphasising again that all the revenue being raised via carbon tax is being recycled to invest in the things that can help communities reduce the need they have for carbon. For example, out of the €238 million that is now being raised in additional carbon taxes as a result of the changes made in this year's budget...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: Looking at the distributional and incomes issues the Deputy raised, would they not simply be bigger and more severe in scale if we were to make a smaller number of bigger moves? I cannot help but feel that if we did get to 2023 and were proposing a very large move, I am not sure he would be supportive of it at that point. If we cannot get the Deputy's agreement to a series of smaller moves,...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with each of the points made by the Deputies. On Deputy Mairéad Farrell's point, there is a very clear commitment in the programme for Government to increase social welfare allowances. It is a matter for the Minister for Social Protection to decide if automatic indexation should be granted in respect of certain payments. It is likely that new payments and new forms of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I think I have covered the points made but I can restate them again. Before doing so, from an IT point of view I am seeing two pictures of Deputy Naughten when he speaks but only one of everybody else. Perhaps that is a good thing.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The price of that, unfortunately, is that Deputy Mairéad Farrell's picture is blurred. While I can still hear her, I cannot see her that well.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: Deputy Farrell can rest assured I can still hear her points. Deputy Naughten is in technicolour glory, whereas Deputy Farrell is a little more analogue at the moment.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: The reception is beginning to break down now at my end. I will keep on going, and if there is a difficulty in what I am communicating I know I will not be short of committee members to tell me.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: Regarding the point Deputy Mairéad Farrell put to me about VAT, it is going to vary from business to business. Some businesses will pass it on while others will not. I know the VAT reduction is a move that Sinn Féin was supportive of. In my response to the Deputy about this point earlier, I specifically said I was not sure how the ESRI counted for the VAT move in this year's...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: This section amends section 104 of the Finance Act 2001 to align Irish excise legislation with the provisions of the EU general excise directive. This directive requires member states to apply a relief to excisable products that are supplied to the armed forces of any state which is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty other than the armed forces of the EU state within which the excise duty...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: A charge on the implementation of the section can only arise if armed forces from another member state are in our country and, particularly from 1 July 2022 onwards, undertaking a common defence activity, which would be under a Common Security and Defence Policy, CSDP, framework. Because our neutrality is very clear, those circumstances will not arise in our country. As to Deputy Barry's...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: This measure does not affect our neutrality. If we are looking to send signals about our neutrality we will find far better opportunities, and there might be a far greater need in the future, than with regard to the implementation of an excise directive. This does not influence our neutrality. I am bringing it in because to use a derogation on an issue I do not believe will arise inside...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I want to respond to what Deputy Doherty said. It is an equally significant statement if a member of Government reassures the committee that this does not impact on our neutrality. At the start of her questioning to me, Deputy Farrell asked how a charge could be created and I explained that because of our neutrality, a charge would not be created due to the implementation of this directive....

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I agree with Deputy Barry that context is all here. The context of this is a long-standing commitment to neutrality on behalf of the Irish State and the idea that the implementation of this section in any way diminishes or affects the commitment that we have to our neutrality is completely wrong. Furthermore, if at some point in the future, a Government was in a situation in which it was...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I will deal with the different points that were raised. In response to Deputy Mairéad Farrell, some cars that have the lowest possible CO2 emission, which would be in the first band of vehicle registration tax, VRT, are clearly more expensive than the average car, but plenty of cars on the lower bands of VRT, bands 2, 3 and 4, have a very low level of VRT and are not the most expensive...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2020: Committee Stage (Resumed) (17 Nov 2020)

Paschal Donohoe: I will keep my comments very brief. It is possible that we could move to the form of taxation the Deputy is proposing, but it is a medium-term project. At the moment our NCT centres do not have the technology to do the kind of real-time CO2 emissions testing he is referring to. We could move to that point over time but it is a medium-term project. What we have here is a significant...