Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Allow me to deal with the energy side first. One must have a competitive market because that pushes down the price of everything and makes companies efficient. Bluntly, since the Government came into office, it has been required by the economic climate to do due diligence on every State asset in its possession, not only the commercial semi-State bodies but everything, including the public service and everything else. This is a huge job for my Department and other Departments have been doing the same, line by line. I wish to be careful as to how I couch this but I cannot say we got best value from all our semi-State companies in the past. We did not and we must both ensure this does not happen into the future and must put right what is happening at present. I believe the decisions being made by the Government incrementally will move us in that direction but obviously, one cannot turn around the tanker in one instant movement. As for pay rates and so on, the Government considered the top rates of pay immediately. It has put in place a new Hay pay scale that has put a ceiling of €250,000 on the salary of a chief executive officer of a commercial semi-State company. As the Deputy is aware, some of them were getting significantly more than that and this must migrate down to other skill sets within companies. However, the other side of this, of which I am highly conscious and I have made this point publicly, is we also must ensure that if we have commercial companies, they are offering commercial contracts and one gets the best people to run them for the best commercial return to the State. I do not know whether Ms Fitzpatrick wishes to add anything to that.