Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Close liaison is being maintained with ESB management and contacts are ongoing within union circles. The Government will bring forward a memorandum on the various aspects of the transfer of the transmission assets. The legislation and financial arrangements will also be presented to the Government in the coming months. The Minister and the Department will continue to liaise on the matter with all the relevant parties. The Minister met the group of unions and will continue to liaise with ESB management and the CER. The claim that the transfer of transmission assets will weaken the ESB commercially is not factual. The transfer of assets will be accompanied by the transfer of liabilities and entail the movement of a small number of staff, which will help the ESB.

In some ways I wish the Deputy was right about the recent disputes. Unfortunately, some of them are so like long playing records that they would not work on the modern technology. The bus dispute has been ongoing for ages; the ESB dispute has been ongoing for several years, while, as the Deputy said, the Aer Lingus dispute has played out three or four times. The rule the trade union movement fought for in 1913 and has stood by since, as the Deputy will be aware, is that when an independent body makes a decision on an increase, the Government of the day should pay it.

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