Results 13,581-13,600 of 32,610 for speaker:Paschal Donohoe

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I thank the Deputy for her questions. She is right that the benefits of non-indexation of the tax code amount to approximately €600 million per year. She will be aware that as they already form part of the summer economic statement, there is no additional money, as a result of the announcement I made last week. On the Deputy's second point about social welfare changes-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: It is certainly one of the sources. It is a fair point. On the Deputy's question about social welfare changes, I represent a constituency which is beside hers. I have many constituents for whom social welfare payments make a gigantic difference. They are not in work and the payments make a very big difference to their standard of living. Many of them do not have the opportunity to...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: No, not off the top of my head. If in the course of this exchange, however, one of my officials tells me otherwise, I will share that with the Deputy.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has some functions that were previously fulfilled by the Department of Health.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The Department of Children and Youth Affairs was founded during the previous Government-----

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: There were no such changes in the past year.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I take the Deputy's point about apprenticeships but we might debate that another day. To respond to the question about what would happen if there was another over-delivery in corporation tax receipts later in the year, we have put such focus on our health expenditure this year in order that we can manage it differently from what happened last year, which, as I have stated to the committee...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Not really. It is a strength of our institutions that the only job of the Revenue Commissioners is to collect tax in accordance with the law. Nevertheless, because of the growing concentration of corporation tax receipts within certain companies, and the growing share of that in the scale of our total tax collection, we need a different approach to how we manage the issue in the future. We...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: The tax strategy group published a paper during the summer that examined the issue to which the Deputy refers. We will have to make changes to VRT to align it with environmental performance. Due to the changes happening at European level, we are introducing real-time emissions testing. The paper was well received by the motor industry because it was clear. I will work on the issue in the...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I was in the Chamber when the Taoiseach answered the question put by Deputy Howlin. He simply made the point that it is better to borrow to keep somebody in a job than it is to deal with the consequences of the person not being in a job. Lest there be any doubt about this, when we have to make additional resources available to pay jobseeker's benefit as more people become unemployed, we...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: On the question of whether I am prepared to borrow to deal with the shock of a no-deal Brexit, the answer is "Yes". While a swing in the national finances from a surplus 0.4% in an unchanged world of to a deficit of 0.5% to 1.5% is considerable, that 1.5% deficit is still a lower deficit than we had a number of years ago.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: : Only if the outcome is a no-deal Brexit. I will not be in a situation where we will have to move outside budget parameters when a no-deal Brexit does not happen.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I will be laying out the measures I am willing to take should we find ourselves in a no-deal Brexit.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Deputy Ryan asked whether I had made any decision on the level of change on carbon tax and the answer is no. I have had discussions with Fianna Fáil, and we have both publicly acknowledged that these are just about the overall issues we have to think about in terms of the budget. On the question of whether I have made any decision if we were to do a change in carbon tax and how we...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I understand that and similarly the idea of any kind of any ringfenced tax would be traditionally anathema to taxation decisions that we make, but as I said I see the taxation of carbon as different from other forms of taxation. The kinds of considerations that I am weighing up at present is that we will have parts of our economy that will experience rapid change as a result of the change to...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Although we would have to borrow, we will still outline what the borrowing would be used for. The sole reason for borrowing, if we need to do it, will be to help our economy respond to the effects of Brexit.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: No. In last year's budget, €115 million of funding within the budget day parameters was used for dealing with Brexit matters. I am just making the point that if we are to deal with a no-deal Brexit, additional measures will be needed on top of the day-to-day needs of funding the State. If those measures are needed and require borrowing, they will be worth doing.

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: I gave the Deputy an answer a moment ago indicating that I agree with the statement. I said that within the €2.8 billion, we will look to use the funding to deal with the measures needed to get our country Brexit-ready and dealing with some of the effects of a no-deal Brexit. If a no-deal Brexit were to occur next year, the needs we would have in meeting social welfare commitments...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Pre-Budget Scrutiny: Minister for Finance (17 Sep 2019)

Paschal Donohoe: Yes. I have now been participating in debates like this for three years and I have never sat in front of this committee while somebody called on me to run larger surpluses. That has not happened. In my many years participating in debates like this, I have never had a single politician calling on me to spend less. The reason is that it is my job to get the balance right because I have the...