Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

There is no question of privatisation of the ESB's assets, as is made clear in two, if not three, different places in the White Paper. As far as we are concerned, it is not an issue. It is explicitly stated that privatisation of the ESB or its assets is not on the Government's agenda. We are discussing a transfer of assets from a State company to a semi-State company. EirGrid is the transmission operator, but it will also become the transmission owner. The ESB will remain in the generation and distribution business, namely, it will distribute electricity to domestic and industrial premises. There is no proposed change in that respect.

Some months ago, the Government agreed that the east-west interconnector will be owned by EirGrid, which will be the first piece of hardware in the electricity market not owned by the ESB. With the exception of transmission lines, the North-South interconnector will be owned by the ESB because it connects to the grid internally across the Border.

Regarding the agreements reached, the White Paper was published two weeks ago and, for a variety of reasons, the meetings in question only took place yesterday. As such, we are at the preliminary stages of discussions with the ESB. We met the ESB, its group of unions and EirGrid yesterday and discussed the implementation of the decisions in the White Paper. The timescale goes to the end of 2008 to enable us to work out the various details of the transfer of assets and how it will operate. Legislation will also be necessary.

On the broader question of why we are doing this, the thrust of numerous aspects of the White Paper is to introduce healthy and new competition to the market, which will have an effect on prices and will directly benefit the consumer, whether domestic or industrial. This matter relates to providing healthy competition in the market, making the economy more competitive and addressing concerns, not least of which are those of the unions. Last week or the previous week, a union issued a publication on what it perceived to be a lack of competition in the market. ICTU had a major concern in this regard and had the matter included in the Towards 2016 document.

We are addressing the need to make the economy more competitive to ensure we do not lose jobs as a result of high energy prices. The overall package in the White Paper, not just the transfer of transmission assets, is designed to make the economy more competitive and to benefit the consumer.

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