Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

Assuming Ireland can get back into the sovereign markets which is the purpose of the programme in the first place, I still hope that it will be the case. It depends, however, how we manage it in the remaining lifetime of the memorandum of understanding.

Deputy Ó Cuív is correct, even if our colleagues in Sinn Féin will not admit it, that the alternative would have been serious cuts in social welfare payments, the remuneration of gardaí, teachers, nurses and so on because of the woeful mismanagement of our economy by previous Governments. We are trying to correct that. Regarding Deputy Ó Cuív's point about a minority share, it depends on how that is implemented. I say to Deputy Boyd Barrett we are not handing over ownership of the ESB. The decision this morning was to sell a minority stake and there is no question of control passing out of the authority of the ESB. I am no fan of the deal foisted on us. In my view it was a bad deal and the people negotiating it did a bad job-----

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