Results 1-20 of 94 for 5 million speaker:Tommy Broughan

OECD Report on SME and Entrepreneurship Policy in Ireland: Statements (10 Dec 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...will move forward quickly and publish her unified strategy document for the future. Small and medium-sized enterprises are a vital part of our economy and employ over 70% of the workforce of 2.3 million people. That is quite typical of the European Union where approximately two thirds of all workers work for SMEs. Even in the UK, approximately half the workforce is in SMEs....

Finance Bill 2019: Second Stage (23 Oct 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...attempt to widen the tax base and lessen Ireland's serious tax dependence on the corporation tax being paid by a small number of multinational companies. As Deputy Michael McGrath said earlier, 45% of it is paid by just ten companies. Despite much good work being done by the Department of Finance in the tax strategy group papers, for which we thank the Department, there was no effort...

Living Wage: Motion [Private Members] (15 Oct 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ..., along with Independent colleagues, to the Minister for Finance, I called for a €7 minimum increase in all social protection benefits and allowances. That could have been costed at approximately €500 million. Social Justice Ireland asked for a basic €9 per week increase and argued that was especially merited, given the daunting challenges of Brexit and climate...

Financial Resolutions - Budget Statement 2020 (8 Oct 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...Climate Change. A fundamental instrument in protecting the people was coming up with some reasonable increase in social protection, pension and benefit payments. I advocated an increase of €7 a week, at a cost of under €500 million a year. The Minister resolutely refused in any way to increase the incomes of the most vulnerable citizens. I am sure the Minister of State,...

Housing (Regulation of Approved Housing Bodies) Bill 2019: Second Stage (Resumed) (25 Sep 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...in this area. We have had housing co-operatives all over the country, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will know. I remember an important co-operative in Kilbarrack going back many years. The past 25 years saw the arrival of the National Association of Building Co-operatives, NABCo, and the Housing Association for Integrated Living, HAIL. They were followed by other similar organisations....

Withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union: Statements (18 Sep 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ..., including what he called "timely, targeted temporary measures for the sectors most exposed". In the no-deal circumstances the Minister is forecasting there will be a deficit of the order of 0.5% to 1.5% of GDP in 2020, with a hit to revenue of up to €6 billion. They are astonishing figures however one looks at them and will clearly have a very traumatic impact on the economy and...

Summer Economic Statement 2019: Statements (25 Jun 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...economic statement is the profound shadow cast on the country by the 31 October deadline for Brexit. The statement sets out two radically different budget scenarios, namely, scenario A on page 25 and scenario B on page 26, which is unprecedented. The priority in scenario A - an orderly Brexit outcome - remains the avoidance of overheating. The report refers to avoiding adding fuel to...

National Broadband Plan: Statements (9 May 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...McDowell, and of Fine Gael got us into the current mess. Some 13 years after the Eircom debacle, the then Minister, Pat Rabbitte, launched a national broadband plan but, by 2017, Eir was able to leave 542,000 Irish homes and businesses without up-to-date telecommunications and broadband. From listening to earlier discussion, an equally conceivable plan might be to simply renationalise...

Report on Public Private Partnerships for Public Sector Infrastructure Projects - Liquidation of the Carillion Group: Motion (4 Apr 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...which is particularly timely in the context of the liquidation of the Carillion group. The collapse of Carillion has significantly delayed the delivery of the PPP contract known as schools bundle 5 right up to the present. It raises profound questions about the continued use of the whole PPP process, which has tied the State into a system of large annual payments to PPP contractors until...

Educational Supports for Children Experiencing Homelessness: Motion [Private Members] (3 Apr 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...It is not the children who should be embarrassed; it is we who should be embarrassed as a Dáil that has not brought this to an end. The motion includes a very simple group of recommendations: a €5 million ring-fenced fund for schools; guidelines and recommendations to be sent to boards of management urgently; and representatives of the Department and the education system to...

Business Insurance: Motion [Private Members] (13 Mar 2019)

Tommy Broughan: I support this motion and commend Deputy Michael McGrath on bringing it forward. Anybody who has served as a director of a company, particularly in the past ten or 15 years, knows the way insurance costs have escalated and made it more difficult for us to employ people and to defray the kind of basic costs of running any kind of business in the community or in the commercial sector. The...

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions: Social Welfare Rates (19 Feb 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...kind of impact assessments? When the Minister responded to my Sinn Féin colleague, Deputy Brady, on this subject she gave global figures but no indication of what it would be if it was not a €5 increase across the board. This morning the Think-tank for Action on Social Change, TASC, published a report entitled Inequality in Ireland and Europe - Cherishing all Equally 2019...

National Surplus (Reserve Fund for Exceptional Contingencies) Bill 2018: Second Stage (Resumed) (30 Jan 2019)

Tommy Broughan: ...most disgraceful in the history of Dáil Éireann. We know from recently published statistics that the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, has cash or near-cash reserves on hand of €14 billion or €15 billion. The Minister of State might provide an update on that figure. The former pensions fund has morphed into two funds, one of which is the Ireland Strategic...

Residential Tenancies (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2018: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Jan 2019)

Tommy Broughan: I am delighted to have a brief opportunity to speak about this important Bill. It is long overdue. It is probably about 30 or 35 years overdue and it certainly does not go remotely far enough to vindicate tenants' rights and create a fair rental market in this country but even the small steps in this Bill are welcome as an attempt to begin to remedy the worst deficiencies in tenancy law and...

Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Bill 2018: Second Stage (Resumed) (13 Dec 2018)

Tommy Broughan: ...the wider airport zone, including Dublin Bay North, in particular jobs in logistics, are dependent on the successful development of the airport. However, as the number of passengers has moved up to 30 million per annum and beyond, and the second runway is under construction, constituents in Dublin Bay North, in particular those on the north fringe, remain profoundly anxious that the...

Social Welfare, Pensions and Civil Registration Bill: Report Stage (29 Nov 2018)

Tommy Broughan: I move amendment No. 5:In page 12, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following: “Exceptional Needs Payment 12.Section 201 of the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 is amended by the addition of “which is not necessarily unforeseen” after “by way of a single payment to meet an exceptional need”.”. This is an amendment to section 201 of the...

Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Gender Pay Gap Information) Bill 2017: Second Stage (Resumed) [Private Members] (28 Nov 2018)

Tommy Broughan: Okay. In Iceland, however, the figure is 25 so the legislation there applies to even smaller companies. I agree with the National Women’s Council of Ireland that this should be reduced further but at least it would cover far more companies than provided for in the original Government Bill. The Bill includes a number of new provisions. The new section 32A(4) sets out the type of...

Finance Bill 2018: Second Stage (Resumed) (23 Oct 2018)

Tommy Broughan: ...provided for continually massive tax expenditures. I refer to briefing paper 13 of 2018 by our diligent and excellent Parliamentary Budget Office, which estimated basic tax expenditure costs at over €5 billion in 2016, rising from €4.7 billion in 2014. Of course, the Department of Finance only began reporting on these vast expenditures in 2014. Members received the...

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions (10 Oct 2018)

Tommy Broughan: ..., as outlined in briefing paper 13 of 2018 by our excellent Parliamentary Budget Office, PBO. Even excluding benchmark taxes, income taxes, the PBO estimates a basic tax expenditure cost at over €5 billion in 2016, rising from €4.7 billion in 2014. These estimates are based only on 2016 data and data for some of the largest tax expenditures up to 2016 are still not...

Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Bill 2018: Second Stage (20 Sep 2018)

Tommy Broughan: ..., but the working group was established because a problem existed and, like Deputy Mattie McGrath stated, many people would not accept the insurance industry's assertion that claims were accounting for 50% to 65% of premiums. We did not have the data. For that reason, I welcome the Bill in general. Recommendation No. 12 on the quarterly publication by the working group of key aggregated...