Results 11,621-11,640 of 12,400 for speaker:Paul Murphy

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Okay. That is interesting.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: That is interesting because if that had not been the case, and if the support from the Exchequer was counted, one could then do the figures based on that. For example, one could estimate a 50% rate of non-payment and the domestic water charges would result in Irish Water failing the EUROSTAT test. Therefore, it is obviously extremely important how that is calculated. Another issue in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Let us take 2014, for example. If one looks at the figures in mid-2014 and the different factors that make up GDP, all of them - personal consumption, Government expenditure, gross fixed capital formation and exports - with the exception of net exports, were lower at that point in mid-2014 than they were pre-crisis. The exception was gross exports which were miles above net exports.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: It is beginning to climb. How those export figures are calculated is extremely important and has an extremely significant impact on the total GDP figures.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Therefore, as regards the point Professor McHale is raising - and he is not the only one to have raised it - about contract manufacturing, as I understand it, from mid-2013 to 2014 according to the national accounts, goods exports had increased by 18.4%. According to the external trade statistics, however, they had increased by 1%, the difference being contract manufacturing. It is not the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Professor McHale does not think it has any substantial impact on GDP. One could have multinational or Irish corporations here that are contracting the production of whatever products in China or elsewhere, which are exported elsewhere and have nothing to do with the Irish economy in reality. If that contract manufacturing was stripped out and not counted, it would not make any difference in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: I have just one general remark, which is not meant to be personally offensive to any of the witnesses. I have a real problem with the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council, or IFAC, in the sense that its role and the way in which it has been set up is part of the deliberate technocratisation of decision-making. It is making economics not something that is political, but the idea that there is a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: That is exactly the point of it. I agree.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Fiscal Assessment Report: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: To stop democratic pressures from below. That is the idea that defines everything else.

Written Answers — Department of Environment, Community and Local Government: Water Services Provision (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: 23. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will report on any meetings he had with his Department's officials and Irish Water on prospective legislation on water services. [22332/15]

Written Answers — Department of Environment, Community and Local Government: Homelessness Strategy (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: 30. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he is aware of the Focus Ireland report on family homelessness in the Dublin area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22331/15]

Written Answers — Department of Health: Cross-Border Health Initiatives (11 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: 152. To ask the Minister for Health the steps that are being taken to make patients aware of their right to avail of publically funded health care in other European Union and European Economic Area states under Directive 2011/24/EU; if he will provide, in tabular form, the number of Irish patients who have availed of this mechanism in other states, by year, since the directive came into...

Central Bank (Mortgage Interest Rates) Bill 2015: Second Stage [Private Members] (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: The Anti-Austerity Alliance is happy to support this Bill as an attempt to curb the gross profiteering of the banks. The rip-off of the bank bailout has been laid bare for all to see in recent weeks in particular as has the inequity of that bailout, where we see how the banks have treated the victims of austerity, those in mortgage difficulty due to unemployment and pay cuts, who are being...

Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2015: Second Stage (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Any measure that enhances the rights and conditions of workers is welcome. This Bill, we are told, will restore the system of registered employment agreements that was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in three sectors, namely, construction, forestry and meat processing. The Bill establishes a system for sectoral orders that can define pay and conditions in areas of the...

Leaders' Questions (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: They said it would not be helpful to do so. Helpful to whom? We then took the advice of the Minister, Deputy Noonan, that if one really wants an answer to a question, one has to submit a freedom of information request. We duly submitted the request, in response to which Irish Water confirmed that by 18 May almost 800,000 bills had passed their pay-by date, although it again refused to say...

Leaders' Questions (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: Could it be that it would give confidence to people, particularly at a time when people are looking at the IBRC scandal, the bailout and write-offs for the rich, for the Denis O'Briens, at the expense of the majority through measures such as the water charges? Four weeks later, I came back to the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, in place of the Taoiseach. By...

Leaders' Questions (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: I am at the question now. A total of 1.4 million bills have passed their pay-by date. I ask for a full and complete answer to two simple and precise questions. Have the figures for rates of payment been discussed between Irish Water and the Government? How many of those due to pay have paid the water charges by now and how many have not?

Leaders' Questions (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: May I remind the Minister for the second time what the Taoiseach said yesterday? "I have been a supporter for a very long time of the idea that Dáil questions should be answered as fully and as completely as possible."

Leaders' Questions (10 Jun 2015)

Paul Murphy: I asked the question in the Dáil four weeks ago. I was told by the Taoiseach to go to Irish Water, to toddle along, where I would be given the answer. Four weeks have passed and we come back and ask the same questions again.