Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

How can the Minister, Deputy Cowen, stand here and, apparently without a hint of embarrassment, justify the debacle the Government has created with the privatisation of the national airline? How does he have the audacity, the shamelessness to read a script that was probably prepared by Stock Exchange sharks in New York to cover or justify the massive incompetence of which this Government is guilty? If this privatisation was a success, why are the shares now being sold at €3.05 when the Government sold them for €2.20?

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