Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)

Not only does the programme to which I refer narrow the options available, it also means that, in effect, the IMF and the European Union can call the shots on key areas of Government policy - which they are doing - including the vital issue of the sale of State assets. The Government has already abandoned its promise not to sell off strategic assets. However, the scale of the sale is in question. The programme for Government states €2 billion worth of State assets will be sold off. Is that still the case? What is proposed would be bad enough, but I wonder whether the Government has succumbed to pressure to sell off even more assets. The IMF has publicly demanded that €5 billion worth of State assets be sold. The proceeds from such a sale would be spent not, as promised in the programme for Government, on job creation but on servicing the debt.

Similar pressure has been exerted on the Greek Government. Is the Minister or any of his colleagues willing to state publicly in this House that they will not bow to such pressure? Will he or any of his colleagues state that whatever proceeds accrue - as stated, we are opposed to any such sale - they will be invested in job creation programmes? I suspect they are not in a position to provide such a guarantee. We await with interest to discover the actual scale of the sell-off. It will also be interesting to see how the Government deals with the pressure from the European Union and the IMF.

Sinn Féin does not accept that there is any logic in selling parts of or shares in State companies and then reinvesting the proceeds through new public programmes or a new State company, as has been proposed in the context of the NewERA project. We believe, as the motion states, that the existing public companies and their dividends must be used more proactively in order to stimulate growth and employment. That would be a far more sensible and productive use of the State sector, rather than a once-off sale which would lead to diminishing services, job losses and higher costs. I appeal to Labour Party Deputies, in particular, to consider what we are proposing as an alternative to what the Government is planning to do.

In recent years we witnessed the sale of Irish Sugar by Greencore and the consequences this had for the agricultural community and beet producers in the south east and Munster. We were informed at the time - the Acting Chairman will be able to verify this - that the golden share would protect the interests of both the workers and the producers. What actually happened was that an industry that had been in State ownership for a long period was given away to Greencore which gained massively as a result. I encourage everyone present in the Chamber to vote with his or her conscience in order to protect the State assets that have served us well in the past.

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