Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)

To answer Deputy Murphy first, I am happy to facilitate such a debate on the McCarthy report and have no difficulty with it. I will signal as much to the Government Whip, if that is helpful. I am happy to debate the issue.

Deputy McDonald is right - we still have some choices although not as many as those about which the Deputy waxes eloquent from time to time. In the tough global world in which we live we want to keep it that way and do not wish to end up like Greece which has very few choices, being faced as it is at present with a demand to sell off billions in euro of its state assets.

As to my plan to hand over the transmission assets, I do not know where Deputy McDonald gets this information. I am not aware of any such plan on my part. I will gladly publish the Cahill report as soon as the Government has disposed of the issue. There is no difficulty there.

I assure Deputy Buttimer there will not be any fire sale of State assets. The author of the McCarthy report makes plain in his report he does not advocate that any of these assets ought to be put on eBay next week. Nobody is recommending that course of action and I certainly do not. Deputy Buttimer is right that such a sale is not the only panacea in the circumstances in which we find ourselves. I explained that departments outside my area, such as Coillte, for example, are currently feeding back responses to the McCarthy report. However, if the wish of the Opposition is to debate the report in the interim, I am happy to facilitate that.

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