Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her question. I expect to receive €400 million in special dividends arising from the sale of non-strategic assets by the ESB. The first of these transactions, the sale in November 2013 of the ESB's 50% shareholding in the Marchwood power plant in the UK, achieved a price that was in excess of expectations and resulted in approximately €153 million in dividends being received by the Exchequer in January of this year.

A consortium comprising Centrica plc, Brookfield Renewable Power Incorporated and iCON Infrastructure has been selected as the preferred bidder for Bord Gáis Energy, BGE, on the basis of a bid that puts an enterprise value of up to €1.12 billion on the business. As the BGE sale agreement has yet to be finalised - I understand we are not too far from it - it would be inappropriate for me to comment on it in further detail, but the terms of the sale will be outlined in due course when the deal has been signed.

Regarding the second part of the Deputy's question, that is, how to use those funds, she will be aware of the Government's consistent position, in that the funds released from asset disposals would be used in one form or another to support job-creating initiatives in the economy. At budget time, I factored a total of €110 million into this year's Estimates in respect of projects supported from the sale of State assets. Some €45 million of this will fund part of the advance works on the new public private partnership, PPP, projects. As the Deputy knows, a big chunk of that will go towards Grangegorman, but I can lay out the details of that and the other projects. Specifically, €25 million will be spent on the Grangegorman project and €20 million on the advanced work on roads. The remaining €65 million will be spent on the continued roll-out of the additional Exchequer investment programmes that I announced last year, those being, €25 million on energy refit for local authority houses and an additional €40 million to the schools programme. Additional elements of this stimulus plan will be rolled out as the various asset transactions are completed and moneys become available. It is hoped we will have more money to spend once the BGE amount is clarified.

See this speech in context