Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

My answer to those questions is the same as the reply I outlined. I have not had any discussions on selling off State assets, especially not the Dublin Airport Authority. I do not have any plans to have any such discussions. I have not read the article to which the Deputy referred and I am not aware of it. The reference in the reply to future consideration was merely information for the Deputy. He should not read anything at all into it. I am not in favour of selling off an important State asset such as the Dublin Airport Authority. There are strategic national reasons why we should own such strategic infrastructure. A privatised Dublin Airport, for instance, would have little incentive to pre-fund runway or terminal capacity or to provide a range of services to meet the needs of prospective rather than existing users, unless as I said, mechanisms were built into the regulatory framework that are not there at the moment. We should learn lessons from past events such as the sale of all of Eircom's then assets which left us in a poor position to implement State and Government policy. I would be very reluctant to go down that road with airports. I do not think it would be a good idea.

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