Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

Clearly, before coming into government, the plan was to use the money in the National Pensions Reserve Fund, the vast majority of which, or more than €10 billion had to be used to bail out the banks. Approximately €4.9 billion now remains in the National Pensions Reserve Fund and that is money that must be considered in respect of NewERA.

On the sale of State assets, there are two ways to do this. The first would be to write off the debt and the other, as my ministerial colleague, Deputy Rabbitte has stated, would be to create jobs. Obviously on an individual basis the Government would be obliged to work with the IMF and EU in respect of the sale of any assets. The clear preference of this side of the House - and I presume also on the Deputy's side - is that were those assets to be sold, job creation would be a productive way in which to use them and they would add to the money that is so urgently needed to create the infrastructure and jobs in broadband, in water and in bioenergy.

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