Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I think you are right, a Chathaoirligh.

I need to address an important issue today, as well as what is happening yonder. I refer to the ESRI report released yesterday showing that low-income households stand to lose most from the budget in 2019. The institute predicts that all household incomes will be down by 0.6% on average. Yet, higher income households will benefit from the USC charges and the changes to income tax. If we put that into context with what we found out in the finance committee last week, the real priority for the Government become clear. Glenbeigh Securities, the vehicle used to transfer up to 6,000 mortgages from Permanent TSB, will not pay any tax at all because of how it is set up as a special purpose vehicle under section 110. We have been told by the Government time and again that all loopholes allowing vulture funds to avoid paying taxes have been closed. It took nine rounds of direct questioning from my colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, to get Permanent TSB to admit that the reason the bank will continue to hold the 5% interest was to avoid the main vehicle paying tax. That is absolutely disgraceful. We also learned that the selling off of the mortgages without agreement is against the code of conduct from the Central Bank. Yesterday, we learned that the Irish Nationwide senior manager responsible for commercial lending was fined €23,000 for reckless conduct. That cost this country €5.4 billion from Irish Nationwide alone. People need to wake up and see what is happening here. It is always the little person who is being screwed over. We are paying reverence to banks and institutions. Who is really running this country?