Results 18,521-18,540 of 35,756 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council: Discussion (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: What engagement, if any, has the council had with the Department and the ESRI? Whatever about the assessment in the past, we need to get this right. Obviously, future policy will be dependent on trying to get an understanding. There will be some clarity at some stage on the outcome and whether we are looking at World Trade Organization tariffs and so on. We need to have the model right...

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council: Discussion (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: The council is lobbying for it or arguing for it. Is that correct?

Committee on Budgetary Oversight: Irish Fiscal Advisory Council: Discussion (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: My last question relates to the concentration of corporation tax receipts. Mr. Coffey can wear his other hat for this answer. We are all familiar with some of the statistics. We know about the 37%. We have been comforted in recent years in the sense that every time we ask a parliamentary question, the concentration levels are coming down. It used to be 40% and now it is 37% for the top...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I thank Ms Goggin for her presentation and I appreciate that she, as chairperson of the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, has come before the committee today. Will Ms Goggin inform the committee of the consumer protection her organisation provides to clients of banks or clients who purchase financial products?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate that. The reason I asked that question is that there is a bit of grey area in that the role, the responsibilities are basically passed on to the Central Bank of Ireland, which carries out those functions and has a statutory function to carry out those functions. In my view, the Central Bank of Ireland does not have the resources to carry out those functions and has done a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate those last comments because that is the problem here; the ombudsman's office, which will be merged, has its own role in dealing with complaints and in mediating complaints. Protection, however, is in making sure that people have not been stung in the first place. It is about trying to protect individuals. I believe there is nothing to prohibit the organisation that has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: Yes, but Ms Goggin speaks about the third cohort of people who cannot get access to the market and she has commended the Central Bank on the prudential rules of the loan-to-income and the loan-to-value ratios. If those rules are commendable, is Ms Goggin suggesting that banks are still refusing to lend to people who are able to reach the two criteria, which is the core of how banks are...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: Does Ms Goggin have any idea of how prevalent that is?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I want to go back to the issue of whether there is a market failure. I am sure the representatives are familiar with the Central Bank (Variable Rate Mortgages) Bill in the context of a cap on interest rates. Under that proposed legislation, which is before this committee, the responsibility would be given to the Central Bank to determine if there was a market failure, and correct me if I am...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I have two final brief questions. Reference was made to the dysfunctional nature of and lack of competition in the market. One would imagine that if the banks are all offering the same products and if there is lack of competition, then there is an opening for a bank to come in and undercut them or make profits. However, that has obviously not happened and, as a result, the normal rules or...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: Governments own banks all over the world and the most prominent banks in some of the best countries in terms of competition, such as Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere, are government-owned. It is not a case of one size fits all regarding government-owned banks being bad and private sector banks being good. Indeed, the private sector made a fairly big mess in this country due to unbridled...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: We should remember that the bankers in AIB have a cap on their wages of €500,000, and as soon as AIB is privatised their wages can go up. There is an incentive for bankers to say that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I will just clarify that because it is a very important point. The point that has been made here is that the difficulty is the legislative proposals we in the Houses of the Oireachtas could introduce for privately owned banks or State-owned banks, regardless of the ownership structure, as opposed to the fact the banks are owned by the State.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: It is really the role that the State takes on the banking sector, regardless of whether the banks are private or public, that is the deterrent.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I thank the witnesses. I know I picked up the bits that I wanted to challenge in terms of the report but it is a very comprehensive report and those involved obviously put a lot of work and effort into compiling it. I thank them for doing it as it helps us with our overall discussion of the mortgage market.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Right2Homes (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: I thank Mr. Honohan and the previous speakers for their contributions. I commend them, as a group, on the efforts they have made. I was taken by Mr. Reilly saying certain people's lives have been put on hold trying to get this across the line. It is not very often we see legislation written from outside the confines of the Houses of the Oireachtas. I commend the witnesses on doing that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Right2Homes (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: Hopefully, Fine Gael will indicate that it is a vehicle it wants to go with or perhaps Fianna Fáil, which is keeping the Government in position through its confidence-and-supply arrangement, will indicate that. I am sure that if there is a will, we can find a mechanism to introduce a vehicle of this nature. On funding, it is stated in paragraph 26 that the co-op could raise money...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Right2Homes (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: From what source would the initial capital come?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Right2Homes (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: Money would be raised on the international markets on the basis that the co-op would start to-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Irish Mortgage Market: Right2Homes (20 Jun 2017)

Pearse Doherty: The NAMA scenario is very similar to what is being proposed here. The only difference is that in terms of the issuance of bonds, they were State-backed bonds. I was interested to see if they would be State-backed or not.