Results 12,741-12,760 of 36,748 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Is this the section on tobacco excise?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I have a couple questions on the section, the first of which looks backwards. I support the increase in excise on tobacco products. Can the Minister or Revenue indicate whether last year's 50 cent increase delivered the €57 million increase in revenue that was anticipated at the time and if it came in on target? Regardless of which policy we adopt, and I support this change, it is...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister or the Revenue Commissioners have any statistics on the performance of this tax head in 2019? Do we know, for example, if the forecast for 2019, which was around €64 million in additional revenue, if memory serves me, was accurate? Have we achieved that? I assume that in terms of 2017 and 2018, it is hard to read those years because the plain packaging of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I agree with the section and I agree with the policy but this is a very tricky issue. I have tabled an amendment on this and believe that a serious piece of research into this area would be very valuable in the context of the figures provided by Revenue, particularly against the backdrop of Brexit. As I commented earlier, with duty free, the landscape will change dramatically. In the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I welcome that statement by the Minister. Even outside the considerations of Brexit, there is an issue here. If the statistics show that illegally consumed cigarettes, purchased outside the jurisdiction, have increased by roughly 3% and illicit cigarettes by 2% in the same period, it is a 5% increase but revenue for 2019 seems to be stable, to within €30 million of what was...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: This relates to the increase in carbon taxes. As I stated about the increase in excise duty on tobacco products, taxation can have the effect of increasing revenue or changing behaviour. In some cases it can do both. However, this carbon tax needs to be about changing behaviour because of the climate emergency. The reality is that this increase will have little, if any, effect on...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: The fuel allowance payment does not necessarily go to the lowest income deciles in the State. The fuel allowance is particularly paid to those of an older age and those on long-term social welfare benefits. However, many of those identified in the ESRI report as being on the lowest incomes are not in receipt of fuel the allowance because they do not qualify for them. I would like the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister accept that households on some of the lowest incomes in the State do not receive the fuel allowance?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: There is, therefore, no protection in this budget for those households the ESRI has said the Government will make poorer as a result of this measure.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: What about those people?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Does the Minister accept that fewer than half of the households on the lowest 10% of incomes receive the fuel allowance payment?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: I made that clear in the point I made about taxation measures and whether the Government wants to raise revenue, as this will do, and have the effect of making those households, including more than half of those households on the lowest 10% of incomes in the State which do not get any fuel allowance payment that the Government will now make poorer. There is an argument in the area of...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Taxation has an effect on behavioural change but people need to be provided with the changes and those are not in place. We supported the tax on sugar and sweetened drinks because there was an alternative. We support increased excise duty on tobacco products because there is an alternative. We do not support an increase in home heating oil, coal and petrol at this point in time because...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: It is the experts the Minister talks about who argue for an increase in carbon tax. Does the Minister know who founded it? Let me tell him. It was founded by ExxonMobil and Shell among others. Oil exploration companies founded this body. I do not suggest its comments are not valid but let us be clear that the major polluters in the world support this measure and welcome it because of the...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: The Climate Leadership Council.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: The Minister mentioned the experts whom he has quoted before here in relation to the Nobel peace prize. That is why I refer to them.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: Because the Minister has mentioned them in the past. As he does, the Minister mentioned some of these Nobel peace prize winners selectively. I have not heard the Minister mention the fact that some of them are arguing for him to accept the Apple money and drop the case. Joseph Stiglitz is one example. If Apple loses that case, it will bring in €14.3 billion to the State, which...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: The Minister has done so at previous committee meetings. He has referred to the Nobel peace prize winners and their suggestions on carbon tax.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: No.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2019: Committee Stage (Resumed) (6 Nov 2019)

Pearse Doherty: It is because the Minister has offered that view on previous occasions at committee. Of course, it is relevant. Is the Minister trying to suggest that everything he has said heretofore should be ignored completely?