Results 13,661-13,680 of 27,251 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I will not repeat the name because the name is very familiar.

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: Denis O'Brien.

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: That is what was going on. It was only because of the mass movement of resistance on the streets that the plan was scuppered. In so far as anybody played a role in here, it was only those who participated in the Right2Water campaign. I am proud that some of the political forces in the Dáil were involved in that. Some of the early organising meetings of Right2Water took place here...

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: The Labour Party agreed. It signed up in the Troika agreement to sell off the forests. I remember former Deputy Rabbitte, when he was Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, standing up in here the day after the demonstration that we organised in Avondale Forest where the week before he had said that sale was going ahead and the day after he admitted that the...

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I am. I am simply making the point-----

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: -----that the reason we have got here is because of people power and the resistance of ordinary people to the attempts of the political establishment in this country, including the Labour Party, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil who wanted to sell off our natural resources and then have them sold back to us at a cost, whether it was water or trees. In case the Government is under any...

Water Services Bill 2017: Report Stage (Resumed) and Final Stage (8 Nov 2017)

Richard Boyd Barrett: As we move towards the close of the debate on this Bill, it is important to recall how we got here and what this was all about. In this debate, and over the course of the past three years, all sides have tried to put their spin on what it was all about, and that spinning continues with people trying to put forward a particular interpretation of the facts. The most ironic, almost laughable,...

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: I want to add my voice of support for Deputy Pearse Doherty's amendment on the issue of vacant tax. The urgency of a vacant unit or vacant home tax simply cannot be overstated. Let me put a human face on this matter because often, when we debate financial matters, one only hears dry figures, statistics and so on. I have a long litany of cases that people in dire circumstances bring to my...

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: Yes. I think they are the subject of a residential tenancies board dispute, which is the last thing I heard about them, because the vulture fund tried to evict the rest of the tenants. That suggests the fund probably has not rented out the apartments that were vacant for the last period.

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

Richard Boyd Barrett: There were between 15 to 20 units over the three or four years, according to the residents in the Robin Hill apartments.

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...