Mr. Matt Staunton:

Deputy Martin Ferris posed a question and I appreciate his support. He put his finger on the nub of the issue. Let us examine what Dr. Peter Bacon did when he carried out his assessment. He assessed how much the initiative would cost Ireland and added all of the component parts together. Then he declared that in order to pay the bill the target of €78 per square metre must be achieved. He made the fair assessment that the price had never been achieved. Just somewhere north of half of it has ever been achieved. He pointed out the huge deficit. He also pointed out that if one sold at that price and got the required money then half of it must be made available for job creation in order to replace all that was lost. The remaining half would have to pay interest off a debt. That would be the same as not making a full credit card payment on the minimum monthly amount.

Dr. Bacon also made a key point about the Greencore and Eircom experiences. We have sold State assets before. We had a gross and net figure. Greencore should have earned us €200 million but when all of the advisers and stockbrokers were paid the sum left over was an awful lot less. Directly after 1990 the initiative led to the closure of those factories, the closure of that industry and the closure of jobs. If ever there was a time that we needed the industry it is now.

Deputy Ó Cuív raised a number of queries with us. I cannot leave here without thanking him for how he facilitated and helped us to reach parliamentarians in recent months. Today he posed three interesting questions. The simplest way to answer his first question is in the following manner. The mere fact that there would be an uncertainty of supply in the future and that Coillte would be all sold in one wallop - and we do not know if it will be in one wallop - is worrying. The Irish Timber Council made the point in its assessment that the measure would be enough to start a threatened closure of ten timber mills in Ireland. An uncertain supply would mean that investors would take their foot off the pedal and the industry would fall back.

Towards the end of the Deputy's contribution he asked what would happen if the Government did one thing instead of another. He can take my presentation and all of the fears and threats that I have raised as code for letting 40% of Coillte go which is just as bad as letting it all go. All of the uncertainty and losses would end up as the same thing. It might come down to who will lose the amenity value somewhere but the overall economic argument still remains.