Results 13,321-13,340 of 26,901 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I add my support to this amendment. The Minister said in his initial contribution that the judgment on the help-to-buy scheme would be the extent to which it did or did not contribute to a rise in house prices. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, brought out a report today which stated house prices have gone up by 12.8% in the past year. In Dublin, in the past three months, the average...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Setting aside any questioning of the Minister's motives or agendas around builders, and I do not believe that he is in any way acting as a representative of those sectors, the measure is not working on its own terms. That is the point. Alternatively, the money could be put where it could contribute to resolving a disastrous situation. This is the essence. Any benefit to the buyer is being...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I wish to add my voice of opposition to what the Government is doing. The Minister of State has rightly taken us back to when the market was bottomed out in 2013. However, the strategy that the Government adopted at that point has turned out to be a disastrous folly. The theory was that by giving vast tax breaks to these investors, we would do something positive for the market. What we...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The market had collapsed.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The market had collapsed. Some of us at the time were saying that NAMA should have behaved differently. This might indeed explain the mystery of a case I brought up with the Minister for Finance earlier. It related to apartments in Sandyford. In that case, NAMA was sitting on empty properties and then sold them to a vulture fund. The vulture fund then sat on the empty properties while...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: And the quantum of assets?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: An additional €3 billion to €4 billion in assets.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Some members said very clearly at the time it was a mistake for NAMA to unload all these property assets and that it should instead have given them to local authorities. It was likely that vulture funds would buy at bargain basement prices. There was considerable debate about whether NAMA was engaged in a fire sale. It is not true to say this was not the subject of hotly-disputed debate at...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: They were not taking a risk when they were being told they would not pay any tax.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: We should get the maximum allowed amount of information, as the Chairman has indicated. The Minister of State has mentioned he thinks four or five funds will benefit from the CGT exemption. We should get as accurate information as possible on how many of those entities will benefit from the extension and factual detail on the quantum of assets in question, which the Minister of State has...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I would like to add a further point to those that have already been made. The current approach offers an incentive to evict people. These capital gains tax breaks incentivise funds to evict people and they are acting on those incentives. When they evict people, the value of the property increases. This is what the funds are doing. I am dealing with a property in my area that has been...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am talking about the various allowances, credits, exemptions and reliefs that we will be discussing later. We have figures for them, so we know what are the tax expenditures. We know how much tax is forgone in those categories. As far as I know, although I would be happy to be enlightened, we do not know how much tax is going to be forgone as a result of this extension. Do we have...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Are there any estimates?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: An estimate would be better than nothing.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: When we are trying to get to the truth of these tax breaks which are given to corporations or property interests, it is always revealing to look at how they are touted by the consultancy and accountancy firms which do the work of getting these people in. Their comments are very revealing. Our friends, PwC, in their document Irish Real Estate Investment Structures, say:[There has been a]...

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: PwC's document is wrong. Is it giving bad advice to the hedge funds?

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister of State can go to PwC's website now. He can get on his phone and look at what PwC is saying.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Tell that to PwC. Of course, the other interesting-----

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I know, and PwC says it can be reduced through various mechanisms. I take its word for it.

Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Finance Bill 2017: Committee Stage (Resumed) (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Like I said, tell it to PwC.