Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

Looking at the recent annual accounts it is interesting to note that the borrowing level has not increased to anywhere near what was anticipated. It is probably closer to what it was at the time when emergency legislation had to be drafted. I am less concerned about the balance sheet, the borrowing aspect of the ESB, than I would be if it had been closer to the levels we provided for in legislation. Deputy Coveney is correct in saying that in opposition I also welcomed the separation of the ownership of the transmission assets under the understanding that these assets would be maintained in public ownership, that this was an asset that rightly belonged to the people, that it is a natural monopoly and, therefore, there was no question of these assets being privatised. Given that we had a separated out transmission grid company that was meant to have complete autonomy and was acting with complete autonomy, the reality was that in a sense the assets had to be transferred to make a reality of that separation out. It was nonsense to separate out this company completely and not give it ownership of the assets it managed. On the basis of giving that company confidence in how it manages those assets there would be no effective transmission grid company if on the one hand it was told to act in a certain manner and at the same time it did not have confidence in what it was doing because it did not own the assets it managed, so it made sense.

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