Results 11,841-11,860 of 27,019 for speaker:Michael Noonan
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: Yes, on the basis of today's paper but that could be qualified by saying the income tax figures for March were strong. If that continued during the year and strengthened further, that would give us a much greater tax carryover into next year and the €700 million adjustment in taxation would be pulled back.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: That is what is here.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: That is gross.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: There are swings and roundabouts. Low inflation continues to improve our competitiveness but it hits the tax take hard. Budgets are built on nominal growth - real growth plus inflation - and if there is hardly any inflation in the system, we are down to real growth to provide us with the extra impetus on the tax side. We would like to be up at the ECB level of just under 2%, which is its...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: It is difficult enough to answer the question. The connection between growth and budgetary correction level is probably between gross national product, GNP, and the amount of taxes that flow through the Exchequer. It is quite a complicated question to answer. If the economy grows very strongly in GNP terms with many people going back to work, paying income and expenditure taxes, no longer...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: We have been through an absolute economic tsunami. If the value of everything in the economy goes down by 20%, as it did with GDP, this then transfers over in the closure of many small businesses, particularly on the retail side. It is beginning to restore again, particularly in Dublin. One sees businesses reopening or starting up. I hope we are at the start of a more optimistic cycle....
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: Obviously, there is always a desire in any government that public services will be very good, especially education, health, keeping the streets safe and so on. We have gone through a period where we had to be very careful about the amounts we were dedicating to such expenditure because we had to consolidate on the expenditure side, as well as on the tax side. We are still operating under...
- Topical Issue Debate: VAT Exemptions (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: There has been no discussion on this issue at the Council of Ministers. In my view, when seeking a change such as this in the code, which change is relatively minor, the best approach is to go through the European Parliament. The Deputy has an opportune time now in the context of the European elections, to lobby the candidates for the European Parliament on making this one of the objectives...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: There will be some scope for income tax reductions if we make a correction in excess of €2 billion.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: That is not the best way of putting it. We take from areas that do not hurt job creation and we give to areas which help to create jobs, but let us travel in hope. We may have scope.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: The position is that we include in the stability update what we know with certainty. We cannot put wishes, aspirations or policies in it until there is agreement, but that does not mean we will not continue to pursue the policy and several other policies to make our debt position more sustainable.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: What the Senator is suggesting is building in data that is aspirational, which is the very thing that got us into trouble in the first instance.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: What we have got here are hard figures on which we can rely, and they are our best projections of what are the figures. We are not putting aspirational material in the document. We are not putting in policy positions that we continue to pursue. We will continue to pursue that particular policy, but it is not appropriate to the stability update.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: The paragraph to which the Senator is referring states: It is important to stress that upside risks also exist on the domestic front. Firstly, economy-wide investment remains at close to record low levels. While the baseline scenario assumes a recovery in the investment-to-output ratio over the medium term, a more rapid 'normalisation' is possible. Secondly, employment growth has surpassed...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: -----I cannot help him any further on this particular question.
- Topical Issue Debate: VAT Exemptions (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: I am pleased to have this opportunity to deal with the question of VAT incurred on the purchase of equipment used by mountain and lowlands rescue teams. I acknowledge the excellent work undertaken by these teams made up of unpaid volunteers, who provide a very important emergency rescue service to the public, often in difficult circumstances, terrain and weather. It is important to clarify...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: Yes, I would be surprised if we did not because there is no shortage of advice in Europe.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: They may be of a general nature.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: Yes, I see them as being more general.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Irish Stability Programme Update: Minister for Finance (15 Apr 2014)
Michael Noonan: What has happened previously at the semester hearings I attended was that countries were obliged to comply.