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

The purpose of this legislation is to allow for the sale of Bord Gáis Energy, a division of Bord Gáis Éireann. Sinn Féin is totally opposed to this. We also oppose splitting Bord Gáis into two companies, one of which will be the network company in control of pipes, maintenance, etc., which will be retained in State ownership while the second is the energy company which is to be sold. We do not believe that this makes economic sense and it is clear that is only being done because the sale of Bord Gáis Energy is part of the troika programme of sale of State assets, which is clearly ideologically driven. While many in Fine Gael may support such an ideology, I remind the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources that his own party voted at its annual conference to oppose any such sale.

Bord Gáis Energy comprises the following businesses - an energy supply business in Ireland, servicing more than 825,000 customers in the gas and electricity markets, North and South; a 445 MV combined cycle gas turbine plan at Whitegate, County Cork; a large scale portfolio of onshore wind assets; and Firmus Energy, an energy company operating in the Six Counties. It is clearly, therefore, not only a valuable asset but one with significant prospects for the future and could, if retained as a single entity, play a significant part in economic recovery. Bord Gáis Energy is a profitable company. In 2012 it reported an EBITDA, gross operating profit, of €79.4 million, compared to €44.3 million in 2011. These are substantial profits. Bord Gáis is by far the biggest player in the domestic gas market at present with a 60.97% market share in June 2013.

We should also learn from the history of privatisation in other countries, much of it also driven by right wing ideology. Over the past two decades, close to $1 trillion worth of state-owned enterprises have been privatised in more than 100 countries. Restructuring, privatisation and deregulation of the energy market began as a political ideology in Chile, New Zealand and Britain, but has spread to the EU, the US, and the rest of the world. The troika's promotion of privatisation is a clearly ideological approach in support of an evermore discredited neoliberal economy and benefiting only a small group of transnational corporations. Their insistence on entrenching neoliberalism is also profoundly anti-democratic. When given the opportunity, European citizens have voted against privatisation, demonstrated in their resounding rejection of water privatisation in the 2011 referendum in Italy. Other citizens across Europe are building powerful anti-privatisation campaigns to stop public services being sold off.

In the short term at least, restructuring and privatisation result in job losses, even in cases where the sector is expanding and the economy is creating new employment opportunities, according to an OECD report on privatising state-owned enterprises.

Reports indicate that the sale of Bord Gáis Energy could generate proceeds amounting to between €1 billion and €1.5 billion, although some more recent estimates have been towards the lower end of the scale. Half of the proceeds could be available to fund employment enhancing projects of a commercial nature with the other half destined to pay down debt. Experience from Greece has shown that the sale of state assets has not returned the profits which were expected and projections have been revised down considerably.

I remind the Minister and all of his Labour Party colleagues that the Labour Party conference in 2012 voted to reject totally the sale of State assets. In going ahead to do that not alone is he doing a terrible disservice to the citizens of this country but he is also turning democracy on its face within his own party.

See this speech in context