Mr. David Gunning:

Regarding the strategy for wind farms, Coillte sees itself primarily as a developer of wind farm infrastructure, not an energy company pumping power into the grid. We are approaching this as a landowner and enhancing the value of our land. As one goes through the process of planning permissions, grid connections, partnership agreements and other ways of adding value to the land, the value of the land increases. We have developed one wind farm in partnership with the ESB but sold our stake after development to the ESB. We have partnership agreements with Scottish and Southern Energy, the owners of Airtricity, Viridian Group plc, the ESB and SWS Natural Resources, before it was bought by Bord Gáis Éireann.

The work streams with NewERA are very complex and much work must be done on them. I spelled out the company’s position. There is nothing else in which we are involved that I have not indicated today. This work is really taking off. We fed into earlier work with NewERA. In turn, NewERA has prepared a report for the Government. I cannot say I have fed into the Government’s decision but we fed into the shareholder-executive side which, in turn, has fed into that process. We were asked to feed into areas such as estate valuation – it was preliminary and not fully-formed at the time – and the identification of issues to which I referred earlier.

The board and management of Coillte are fully engaged in the process of giving effect to the Government’s decision. We are working closely with NewERA to review all the implications involved, as well as fulfilling the board’s legal duty to act in the best interests of Coillte and its responsibilities to other stakeholders including employees and creditors. It is a complex process. However, rather than adding to speculation I have given a picture of where we are in it.

We have stayed out of any discussions on value. In the past, I was involved in €2 billion worth of mergers and acquisitions, so I have some experience of this area. From the company point of view, we do not seek to add into the discussion around what Coillte is worth. It is not appropriate that we would contribute to that which may, in turn, may influence a bid.