Results 17,201-17,220 of 26,924 for speaker:Richard Boyd Barrett
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I presume Deputy Healy will come back to this issue on Report Stage.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: The Minister's first comment was that in some ways the view on these matters depends on the overall view of society. In some ways it is a philosophical discussion that is probably wasted in this type of forum and dealing with this Bill. Just for the record, it is worth putting the alternative view. The first issue is the immediacy of these measures. I do not see how anybody can justify...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not agree with the Deputy on certain issues at all, although I agree on some matters. At a basic level, there are people who are working but who cannot afford to pay rent. There are civil and public servants coming to my office who cannot pay rent and who are using homeless services or sleeping in cars. When that is happening, regardless of ideology, every single bit of available...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I imagine those people would not be too happy with our wealth tax proposals.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: It is about the multiple properties they own.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I will be brief. I do not want to labour this point because we fundamentally disagree on it. The Minister has not addressed the question I put to him about wealth inequality. Does he see it as a problem? He will be aware that many people - including Thomas Piketty most famously, and David McWilliams more recently in this country - have argued that growing wealth inequality is a problem....
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: No, I did not.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I think "disingenuous" was the word I used.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Cheaper accommodation would go a lot further.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I know that.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I am trying to get my head fully around this. On foot of lobbying by foreign direct investment companies, which we can understand to be large multinationals which already make extraordinary profits and pay very low levels of effective tax, we will concede yet another tax break. This follows the SARP tax break. There was also a tax break for these executives to send their children to private...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: What is to stop people just flying in for holidays and handing it in against expenses?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I am not convinced.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: This section deals with health insurance. Are the provisions of the section related to the lifetime community rating for health insurance?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: Why is the Minister incentivising young people to take out private health insurance? Is that not a case of the State acting on behalf of private health insurance companies?
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I am in favour of greater investment in forestry. We need to do more than we are at the moment. The largest block to our having the levels of afforestation that we require is the fact that the State forestry company has effectively been ruled out of engaging in new planting, which is ridiculous. I see the Minister's logic in this case. In the harvesting year, one's income is high.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I do not know whether that is my phone. A high income in a harvest year would not necessarily reflect one's income every year. Should there not be a ceiling or the like whereby we could distinguish between someone who had large amounts of forestry and was making mega-profits and a small or medium-sized farmer who had only one year in which his or her income went over the line? I...
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: We should have them in cities. Seriously - we need it.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: I do.
- Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Finance: Finance Bill 2015: Committee Stage (17 Nov 2015)
Richard Boyd Barrett: We have returned into the area of fundamental differences and perspectives. For the record, I think the lack of economic literacy is on the part of the Minister and not on our part. It is worth mentioning, in the context of what has been said about consistency, that the Taoiseach once said he was "morally" opposed to putting taxes on the family home. There is a lack of consistency there...