Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I welcome the fact that we will have an opportunity to discuss the Nyberg report today, although I cannot say I welcome its content. Given the media coverage today that the McCarthy report proposes the sale not of €2 billion worth of State assets, as specified in the programme for Government, but of €5 billion worth, and lists such bodies as Coillte, the ESB, and harbours and ports, is it not a matter of urgency that we debate the report before the Easter break? This is not about what happened in the past but what will be done to vital public assets in the future in order to pay off the bad gambling debts of bankers and speculators at the behest of the IMF. Could we have time before the Easter break to discuss this report and hear the Taoiseach's response to its recommendations?

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