Results 1,801-1,820 of 7,975 for speaker:Joe Higgins

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Rather than narrowing down the issue to property barons replacing the beef barons, it must be realised it is much wider, as I illustrated, in that big, wealthy businesspeople in general-----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: -----support the political system because of the gains they can make from policy.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: In regard to the nexus of property interests and developers, Mr. McDonald relates back to TACA, the fund-raising venture for Fianna Fáil in the 1960s involving significant property interests. He then moved forward to the Galway tent, where developers socialised with senior Fianna Fáil politicians. Does he say there is an unbroken thread from the 1960s to the 2000s in relation to...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. McDonald covered extensively the Dublin county development plan from 1991 to 1993. He wrote a series of articles at that time referring to Dublin county. The headline of one of those articles alludes to "where it is possible to boost the value of parcels of land beyond the dreams of avarice", and another headline reads, "Cash in brown paper bags for councillors". In that series of...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Did tribunals make any findings in relation to councillors' activities during that period?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: In 1993 in one of those articles Mr. McDonald referred to a former councillor who, in defending the extensive rezoning in Dublin County Council said, "I have never put a boundary to the onward march of a nation." Mr. McDonald said, "If this type of planning prevails we will start hitting the outskirts of Dublin in or around Kinnegad." When I was rereading that I had echoes of Macbeth being...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: It is more a case of the castle coming to Birnam wood in Mr. McDonald's prognosis.

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Did the outskirts of Dublin come to Kinnegad?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: What were or are the implications of that?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Mr. McDonald---

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: The 2007 register of Dáil Members found that the following percentages of TDs were either landlords or owned commercial residential investment property: 39 of 78 Fianna Fáil TDs, 50%; 49% of Fine Gael TDs; and 20% of Labour Party TDs. In 2013 the register showed 27% of Members of the Dáil were registered landlords. In 2007 an RTE "Prime Time" documentary found 22% of...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Does Mr. McDonald believe that this might have influenced planning decisions or influenced the light touch regulation that existed during the creation of the bubble and which has been referred to in evidence to the committee? Does he believe that that may have influenced the attitude that political parties took in Dáil Éireann between 1997 and 2007? For example, what role did...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (12 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Did it influence the Dáil in the pre-bubble period?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor Farrell refers in page three of his written statement to the Nyberg commission and states: "The Oireachtas is notably absent from this coverage, receiving only passing reference in the Commission of Investigation report where it is noted that one of the causes of a 'systematic financial crisis' is likely to 'a parliament that remains unaware of mounting problems'." Earlier in the...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor Farrell has dealt well with structures in Parliament and how it should work, and whether the structures enable it to work. I am trying to clarify the issue of whether there is a different motivation that subverts that particular----

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Can politicians serve God and Mammon? Can they serve the interests of these close relationships on the one hand while serving the interests of the majority of ordinary people on the other?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Could it be the case that no matter how efficient the workings of Parliament or parliamentary committees are, other motivations can obstruct that efficiency being deployed in the best interests of society?

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: On page six, and Professor Farrell quoted this himself today as well, he writes: "The main conclusion to draw from all this is that in the period under investigation the Irish parliament performed poorly: it lacked sufficient organizational and structural fire power to provide effective scrutiny; it lacked too the political will to use what powers it did have indicating 'cultural'...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: Professor Hardiman stated on page 1 of her written introduction, under the title of privileged access to decision-making, that, "politicians, and key public officials had too little distance from powerful private sector interests, resulting in what is sometimes termed as "cronyism" or even "crony capitalism." In the letter the professor received from the banking committee she was asked to...

Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis: Context Phase (11 Mar 2015)

Joe Higgins: The professor referred to critics and contrary views to those prevailing, by common consent, in the inflation of the bubble period, being ignored.Yesterday, Mr. Simon Carswell, who is a correspondent for The Irish Times, said the following about banks, Government, builders and regulators in his written evidence on page 2: For these parties, it was too comfortable - and indeed self-serving...